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The UN Secretary-General has removed India from the list of countries named in the report on children and armed conflict over the alleged recruitment and use of boys by J&K armed groups and their detention, killing and maiming by security forces.
This is the first time since 2010 that India is not named in the report along with countries such as Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Lake Chad Basin, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ report on “Children and Armed Conflict” said that India “was omitted from the report in 2023” in light of the government’s actions to “better protect children”.
Officials with the Ministry of Women and Child Development said on Wednesday that this was made possible due to the introduction of various policies and institutional changes since 2019.
An official statement said the ministry has drawn up a roadmap for cooperation and collaboration on child protection issues under the guidance and leadership of Smriti Irani, the Union Minister for Women and Child Development.
Indivar Pandey, secretary of the WCD, who has been in frequent contact with the UN on the matter, told The Indian Express: “This is a huge achievement for India, after removing our name from this list after 12 years… Many regimes did not exist where before.” at J&K”.
“The juvenile justice law has not been implemented and the juvenile homes there are not functioning properly. Other infrastructure such as child welfare committees, juvenile justice boards and children’s homes have since been set up.
The report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations stated:
In my previous report, I welcomed the engagement of the Government of India with my Special Representative and noted that such engagement might result in India being excluded as a case of concern.
“In view of the measures taken by the government to better protect children, India has been omitted from the report in 2023,” Guterres said.
Pandey said, “Many of the measures proposed by the UN have already been implemented or are in the process of being implemented. We have trained security forces to protect children. The use of pellet guns has already been suspended. The JJ Act and POCSO Act are being implemented.”
In a statement, the ministry said, “The Government of India has been continuously engaged in efforts to exclude the name of our country from this sordid list. The Government of India’s continued engagement with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) accelerated after a joint ministerial meeting was held in November 2021” and “led To an agreement to appoint a national focal point to identify national priorities, interventions to enhance child protection, a joint technical mission to hold interministerial meetings at the technical level with the United Nations to identify areas of enhanced cooperation for child protection.
According to the statement, the technical team of the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General visited India on July 27-29, 2022. This was followed by a workshop on strengthening child protection, held at J&K in November 2022 by the WCD Ministry in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the J&K government with the participation of the United Nations.
“All statutory structures to provide services such as the Child Welfare Commission and Juvenile Justice Boards were created under the Juvenile Justice (Children Care and Protection) Act 2015. The ministry stated that in view of the measures taken by the government to better protect children, India had been omitted from the report in 2023. .
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