Niamatullah joined the Afghan National Police (ANP) for the same reasons that many Afghan men do.
'I am illiterate,' he says, sitting in the police barracks in Aghandab district, Kandahar, a Kalashnikov machine-gun hanging from a strap on his neck. 'I couldn't find a job, so I was compelled to join the police. There were only two ways. Join the police or beg.'
Niamatullah has something else in common with all too many Afghan police and army forces: he's only 16 years old.
On the record, government sources say that there are no underage soldiers or officers in the ANP and Afghanistan National Army (ANA). But speaking anonymously, many admit that in fact there are soldiers and police officers under the age of 18 serving in both security forces.
In interviews, these teen soldiers say that they need jobs to provide for their families and the police or army are more than happy to hire them, even providing the teens with fake National Identity Cards (NIC). In a matter of weeks, Afghanistan's boys can go from high school students, to uniformed soldiers.Read more
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