Oxfam said Mark Sedwill, who is Nato's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan and also served as British ambassador in Kabul, should "get out more" to see the reality of a country that in terms of health, education and violence bumps along the bottom of most international charts.
"I would encourage him to get out into Kabul more and visit schools and some of the street children in Kabul and ask them what they think, because his comments are very much out of line with what children and their parents feel are the dangers in Afghanistan," said Ashley Jackson, the head of policy for Oxfam in Afghanistan.
Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children, said Afghanistan is "the worst place on earth to be a child", pointing out that one in four children die before they reach five years old.
During an interview for the Children's BBC programme Newsround, Sedwill said there were "very few bombs" in Kabul and other main cities.
"The children are probably safer here than they would be in London, New York or Glasgow or many other cities," he said. "It's a very family-orientated society, so it is a little bit like a city of villages".
But various surveys paint a much grimmer picture. Watchlist, a consortium of human rights groups and UN agencies, found 200,000 had been injured or maimed by conflict since 2001.
Even though the cities are less affected by Taliban violence than rural areas in Afghanistan's south and east, Jackson said a recent survey of children living in large cities by the ministry of public health showed that a quarter showed signs of psychological disorders and trauma. But nowhere was reaction to the diplomat's remarks more stunned than among the children who beg and sell trinkets outside Sedwill's own office, the headquarters of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf).
Like half of all Afghan children, they are not in school, spending their time trying to make a bit of extra money for their families instead.
Last August, the street was hit by a huge suicide car bomb blast at the gate where teams of street children harass passersby for cash.
An 18-year-old was killed, and several of the children were injured.
Khursheed Zaman, 13, selling scarves near where the bomb went off, was blown off her feet and hit her head. She was taken to hospital for a couple of days and sent home with some pills.
"I've never felt the same again," she said. "I still feel dizzy and sick sometimes, but I have to come here to sell the scarves".
Sedwill said that his comment to the BBC "wasn't very well put" and that his comparison with western cities "distracted attention from the important point I was seeking to make", about the uneven level of violence across Afghanistan.
"Half the insurgent violence takes place in 10 of the 365 districts, and, in those places, children are too often the victims of [improvised explosive devices] IEDs and other dangers," he said.
"But, in cities like Kabul where security has improved, the total levels of violence, including criminal violence, are comparable to those which many western children would experience".
He said the lack of clean water, the open sewers, malnutrition and disease were a greater risk to children than the insurgency.
The Afghan capital has indeed been largely spared spectacular Taliban attacks in recent months, although by international standards it is still regularly rocked by violence, including, as in August, complex attacks by groups of suicide bombers against buildings.
Sedwill's remarks were uncharacteristically ham-fisted from a diplomat who prides himself on his communication skills when dealing with the international media.
"He is generally seen as a safe pair of hands, but after something like this, you get to the point where you think: you know what - maybe it isn't a good idea for him to do that interview or go to this meeting," a western official said.
Sedwill, who has served as private secretary to Robin Cook and Jack Straw and held senior positions in the Cairo embassy and Islamabad high commission, has made no secret of his desire to gain one of the top Foreign Office jobs, including ambassador in Washington. But last week he angered his Nato bosses when he gave journalists in Kabul a frank assessment of the alliance's attempt to transfer control of the country to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014.
He said that even after 2014 it was likely that some areas of the country would be afflicted by "eye-watering" levels of violence and that there was no guarantee the deadline for withdrawal of troops would be met.
His analysis contrasted with that of the Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who at an international summit in Lisbon days later insisted that the deadline would be met.
The Guardian
