Eight years after the US-led forces overthrew the Taliban, children in Afghanistan are suffering disastrous levels of abuse, deprivation and mortality, officials say.<br/>At a Kabul news conference marking the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, officials said children's rights were being neglected despite vast flows of Western aid into the country.<br/>Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world, said Catherine Mbengue, country representative for the UN children's fund UNICEF. Seventy per cent of the population has no access to safe drinking water. Thirty per cent of children are involved in child labour. Forty-three per cent of girls are married under age.<br/>More than one in four children born in Afghanistan die before the age of five, according to UNICEF estimates, although recent research still due to be published suggests this level has been reduced to about one in five.<br/>