Nepali Children Entitled to Universal Rights: UNICEF

Kathmandu Nov 20-Dr Suomi Sakai, Representative of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has said that UNICEF has been assisting the Government to make progress in many of the areas under the Child Rights Convention particularly with regard to children’s rights to education, health, nutrition and protection.

The ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child’, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, is a set of standards adopted by countries for the protection and well-being children.

The central premise of the Convention is that anyone below 18 years of age is a child and has the right to special care and protection and this right to special care and protection applies to all children in all countries, and at all times. It is not a right that can somehow be diminished or whittled down due to conflict or natural disasters afflicting a country.

“The children of Nepal have the same entitlements as children of other countries to the rights enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” she added.

Dr Sakai also noted that signing the Convention was only the first step for countries. The Convention then required them to analyse their laws and procedures to ensure that they did conform to its international standards concerning children. Countries also needed to report regularly to the Committee on the Rights of the Child on their progress.

Nepal, which signed the Convention in 1990, had made its last report to the Committee in May 2005 and the Committee had in return responded in June with a series of what were called ‘Concluding Observations’ about this report.

“The Committee, while noting a number of positive changes in terms of legislation, ratification of conventions, and development of national plans, also noted what it called ‘the extremely negative impact’ on children by the armed conflict in Nepal,” said Dr Sakai.

“The Committee noted that ‘the climate of fear, insecurity and impunity resulting from the armed conflict and the state of emergency’ had had a ‘seriously negative physical and psychological impact on the sound development’ of Nepal’s children,” she said.

Dr Sakai also informed that the Committee had also urged the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to respect child rights within the areas under which it operated.

At the same time, the Committee had reminded the government, as a State party to the Convention, of its obligation to respect the Convention at all times and not to derogate from any of its provisions, even in exceptional circumstances. It had recommended strengthened measures to combat impunity with regard to violence against children

Main while,an official Nepali news agency has reported that nearly one thousand Nepali child workers are stranded in Pithauragadh of India for the last four months.

The children who were working in Pithauragadh of India are stranded there as the contractors did not pay them for their work. The children were compelled to go to India due to flaring conflict of the country and are between 13 to 15 years, reports said.

The contractor gave them only IC 30 per day after they started work despite earlier assurance of IC 130 per day. However they were compelled to work there as they did not have fare to return home.

Report quoted Son Bahadur Chaudhari as saying that they were even not getting proper food after hard work all day.

“We left the home due to the fear that Maoists will force us to join the party, but now we did not have money to return home,” he added.

Nearly one thousand child workers were forced to work there without proper food and sanitation.

Same as Amnesty International (AI) has urged the Maoists to uphold their commitments to respect child rights.

In an open letter to Prachanda on the occasion of Universal Children's Day, the AI has called for the Maoist-announced ceasefire to be followed by an end to the pattern of violence and intimidation by the Maoist, which continues to affect the lives of many children in Nepal.

"The continuing violence by the Maoists reflect a total lack of commitment to the ceasefire and is a worrying trend in a country where the decade-long conflict has already resulted in widespread and serious human rights abuses and violations by both sides, including against children," said Purna Sen, director of the Asia - Pacific Regional Programme, Saturday.

"School children are being denied their right to education, many have been abducted, recruited ...and forcibly displaced. In addition, the ongoing conflict has left children traumatised and vulnerable," said Sen.

AI also called upon the Maoist leader to end attacks targeting civilians, killings, abductions and recruitment of child soldiers, which have impacted so greatly on children’s lives and their basic human rights.

The AI further urged Prachanda to instruct all Maoist cadres to abide by international humanitarian law, end the targeting of schools, abduction of children and teachers and ensure that their cadres respect and protect children’s rights during their operations and in areas under their control.