Today, I want you to look at
children who become suicide bombers
through a completely different lens.
In 2009, there were 500
bomb blasts across Pakistan.
I spent the year working
with children
who were training to become suicide bombers
and with Taliban recruiters,
trying to understand how the Taliban
were converting these children
into live ammunition
and why these children were actively
signing up to their cause.
I want you to watch a short video
from my latest documentary film, "Children of the Taliban."
(Singing)
The Taliban now run their own schools.
They target poor families
and convince the parents to send their children.
In return, they provide free food and shelter
and sometimes pay the families a monthly stipend.
We've obtained a propaganda video
made by the Taliban.
Young boys are taught justifications
for suicide attacks
and the execution of spies.
I made contact with a child from Swat
who studied in a madrassa like this.
Hazrat Ali is from a
poor farming family in Swat.
He joined the Taliban a year ago
when he was 13.
How do the Taliban in your area get people to join them?
Hazrat Ali: They first call us to the mosque and preach to us.
Then they take us to a madrassa
and teach us things from the Koran.
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy: He tells me that children
are then given months of military training.
HA: They teach us to use machine guns, Kalashnikov,
rocket launchers, grenades, bombs.
They ask us to use them only against the infidels.
Then they teach us to do a suicide attack.
SOC: Would you like to carry out a suicide attack?
HA: If God gives me strength.
SOC: I, in my research,
have seen that the Taliban have perfected
the way in which they recruit
and train children,
and I think it's a five-step process.
Step one is that the Taliban prey
on families that are large, that are poor,
that live in rural areas.
They separate the parents from the children
by promising to provide food, clothing,
shelter to these children.
Then they ship them off, hundreds of miles away
to hard-line schools
that run along the Taliban agenda.
Step two:
They teach the children the Koran, which is Islam's holiest book,
in Arabic, a language these children do not understand
and cannot speak.
They rely very heavily on teachers,
who I have personally seen
distort the message to these children
as and when it suits their purpose to.
These children are explicitly forbidden
from reading newspapers, listening to radio,
reading any books
that the teachers do not prescribe them.
If any child is found violating these rules,
he is severely reprimanded.
Effectively, the Taliban create
a complete blackout
of any other source of information for these children.
Step three: The Taliban want these children
to hate the world that they currently live in.
So they beat these children --
I have seen it;
they feed them twice a day dried bread and water;
they rarely allow them to play games;
they tell them that, for eight hours at a time,
all they have to do is read the Koran.
The children are virtual prisoners;
they cannot leave, they cannot go home.
Their parents are so poor,
they have no resources to get them back.
Step four: The older members of the Taliban,
the fighters,
start talking to the younger boys
about the glories of martyrdom.
They talk to them about how when they die,
they will be received up
with lakes of honey and milk,
how there will be 72 virgins
waiting for them in paradise,
how there will be unlimited food,
and how this glory
is going to propel them to become
heroes in their neighborhoods.
Effectively, this is the brainwashing process
that has begun.
Step five: I believe the Taliban have
one of the most effective
means of propaganda.
Their videos that they use
are intercut with photographs
of men and women and children
dying in Iraq and Afghanistan
and in Pakistan.
And the basic message is that the Western powers
do not care about civilian deaths,
so those people who live
in areas and support governments
that work with Western powers are fair game.
That's why Pakistani civilians,
over 6,000 of whom have been killed in the last two years alone,
are fair game.
Now these children are primed
to become suicide bombers.
They're ready to go out and fight
because they've been told that this is
effectively their only way
to glorify Islam.
I want you to watch another excerpt from the film.
This boy is called Zenola.
He blew himself up, killing six.
This boy is called Sadik.
He killed 22.
This boy is called Messoud.
He killed 28.
The Taliban are running suicide schools,
preparing a generation of boys
for atrocities against civilians.
Do you want to carry out a suicide attack?
Boy: I would love to.
But only if I get permission from my dad.
When I look at suicide bombers younger than me, or my age,
I get so inspired by their terrific attacks.
SOC: What blessing would you get
from carrying out a suicide attack?
Boy: On the day of judgment, God will ask me,
"Why did you do that?"
I will answer, "My Lord! Only to make you happy!
I have laid down my life fighting the infidels."
Then God will look at my intention.
If my intention was to eradicate evil for Islam,
then I will be rewarded with paradise.
Singer: ♫ On the day of judgment ♫
♫ My God will call me ♫
♫ My body will be put back together ♫
♫ And God will ask me why I did this ♫
SOC: I leave you all with this thought:
If you grew up in these circumstances,
faced with these choices,
would you choose to live in this world
or in the glorious afterlife?
As one Taliban recruiter told me,
"There will always be sacrificial lambs in this war."
Thank you.
(Applause)