In a momentous move, India has been dropped from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ yearly report on the effects of armed conflict on children as a result of India’s remarkable efforts to protect children’s rights.
Since 2010, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Lake Chad Basin, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Philippines had all been featured in the study alongside India. Initial claims that armed groups were enlisting young boys in Jammu and Kashmir and the detention of minors by security forces on grounds of affiliation with these armed groups led to India’s inclusion in the study.
In his earlier report, Guterres had commended the Indian government’s cooperation with his special representative and expressed hope that India may one day be taken off the list of countries to be concerned.
Guterres formally acknowledged India’s removal in the recently published 2023 report on Children and Armed Conflict and credited it to the country’s government’s proactive child protection efforts. The UN was actively involved in a workshop that the Indian government held in Jammu and Kashmir in November 2022, as the Secretary-General also noted.
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, emphasized that India had been working closely with the UN over the previous two years, underscoring the country’s commitment to stopping violations and establishing long-lasting child protection mechanisms.
According to Guterres’ annual report, children continue to suffer disproportionately from armed conflict around the world. There were 24,300 grave violations that were validated by the UN in 2022, with an additional 2,880 terrible violations that were verified earlier but in 2022.
The research found a number of breaches, including murder, dismemberment, recruitment and usage, kidnapping, and detention, that had a substantial negative impact on children.
The fact that India has been removed from the list demonstrates how far the nation has come in protecting the rights and welfare of children living in conflict areas. It emphasizes the value of proactive actions and teamwork in creating a safer and more secure environment for children caught up in armed conflict around the world.
