New Delhi: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ report on children and armed conflict does not include India for the first time in 12 years, the Indian Express reported.Earlier, India was a part of the ‘UN Children and Armed Conflict report’ – alongside Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Lake Chad basin, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines – over the alleged recruitment and use of boys by armed groups in Jammu and Kashmir and their detention, killing and maiming by security forces, the Indian Express report said.The latest report released on Tuesday, June 27, said India has been “removed from the report in 2023” in view of measures taken by the government to “better protect children”.Officials of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) said on Wednesday that this became possible due to the introduction of various policies and institutional changes since 2019, according to the Indian Express.Also read: Detentions, Lack of Opportunities and Deteriorating Mental Health: Report Sheds Light on J&K KidsHowever, in a Special Report released in 2022, the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir comprising Justice A.P. Shah, former Chief Justice of the Madras and Delhi high courts, Gopal Pillai, former government of India home secretary and many other judges, activists and lawyers had highlighted violations of human and child rights in Jammu and Kashmir with special attention to the latter.The 2022 report states that teenagers continue to be harassed, picked up for questioning and are illegally detained, in complete violation of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, The Wire had reported.An August 2021 news report mentioned by this study said that at least nine minors between 14-17 years old had been illegally detained by the police. Several of the detained minors were beaten up or imprisoned for weeks, the report said.The report also points out that Cordon and Search Operations (CASO) carried out by the armed forces use children even though they are protected against detention and arrest.The violation of child rights in Jammu and Kashmir had also prompted the United Nations Security Council to express concern over ‘grave violations against children’ in a May 2021 report, The Wire had reported.Meanwhile, the WCD Ministry, in a statement said, “The Government of India had been consistently engaged in efforts to exclude our country’s name from this ignoble list. The ongoing engagement of the Government of India with the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) sped up after an inter-ministerial meeting was held in November 2021” and it “led to an agreement to appoint a national focal point to identify priority national interventions to enhance protection of children, joint technical mission to hold inter-ministerial, technical-level meetings with the UN to identify areas of enhanced cooperation for child protection”, the Indian Express reported.According to the statement, the technical team of the office of the SRSG visited India on July 27-29, 2022. This was followed by a workshop on strengthening child protection, held in 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.
