South Asia's
children face a litany of human rights abuse at
the hands of the state, armed
opposition groups; as sex workers, bonded
labourers and in
brothels, Amnesty International said today as it
launched an international
campaign on children's rights in the region. All the governments in South Asia
have made a commitment to uphold the
United Nations Convention
on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and have
strengthened this
commitment through the South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
Yet children continue to be ill-treated in
the custody of the state as
it administers juvenile justice, are left
unprotected in the family
and community and suffer the consequences of
living in the midst of armed
conflict.
"The gap between
rhetoric and reality must be closed for each and every
child in South Asia. A massive
40 percent of the region's population are
children -- they are the adults
of tomorrow and their childhood must be
protected," Amnesty
International said.
"As the most
vulnerable members of society, children need
special
protection and regional
governments have a duty to provide it. If the
forthcoming SAARC 'Decade of the
Rights of the Child' is to bring about
real change in South Asia,
governments must take decisive measures to
ensure that state officials,
businesses, schools and parents do not deny
children their
rights."
A High Court investigative
committee in India found that children picked
up by police were subject to
"shockingly savage and barbarous treatment
... [including
electric shocks, piercing chilli-powder and petrol
covered sticks into the
private parts and knotting the juvenile's body
to a stick." A boy of 12
was stripped by police and beaten repeatedly
with a broken wooden bat
in Sri Lanka -- he had been picked up on
suspicion of links
with the armed opposition. In Bangladesh,
a
12-year-old boy spent 12 years
in prison, held in leg irons for almost
the entire time. His detention
was later found to be illegal.
In Pakistan, some bonded
labourers are held in private jails controlled
by landlords. In one case,
children as young as a few months old were
held in a rural jail in Sindh,
where girls were repeatedly raped by the
landlord and his sons. More
than 9,000 girls are trafficked each year
from Nepal and Bangladesh
-- destined to a life of sexual slavery in
India and Pakistan, often with
the acquiescence or sometimes connivance
of state officials.
Armed groups in the region
have deliberately killed, tortured, raped and
intimidated children, and
recruited them to fight as soldiers, despite
the safeguards in
international humanitarian law which forbid these
activities. Many children from
Madrasas (religious schools) in Pakistan
have been sent to Afghanistan
to fight for the Taleban. In Sri Lanka,
six children were among 42
unarmed civilians deliberately killed by
Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) troops. In Afghanistan, in a
massacre of 70
civilians, Taleban guards killed and decapitated an
eight-year-old boy, and
reportedly held down two 12-year-old boys and
broke their arms and hands with
stones.
All over the
South Asia region, children can be seen
working in
factories, mines, brick kilns
and brothels. They often work in dangerous
and unhealthy environments and
are deprived of rights promised them in
the CRC such as health,
education and recreation. They find themselves
trapped in a cycle of
poverty, growing up illiterate, unskilled and
prone to involvement in
crime.
Economic disadvantage,
social exclusion and political marginalization
add to the vulnerability of
youth to perpetuate these cycles of abuse.
Girls face particular
disadvantage, which compounds the discrimination
faced by women.
Amnesty International's
campaign report recognizes that delivering on
commitments contained in
the CRC is an enormous challenge for any
government,
requiring a combination of legal, economic and social
measures, and that the
task is especially daunting for many of the
countries of South Asia,
with large and diverse populations, limited
resources and weak
institutions.
According to Amnesty
International, some governments have taken positive
initiatives to improve
children's rights, ranging from legislation to
protect children to
human rights education programs, with varying
degrees of implementation and
success.
But these have not stopped
some state officials from denying children
their rights, allowing
abuses against children in the community and
family -- either through
active collusion and complicity or through
tacit toleration and
acquiescence," the report argues.
According to Amnesty
International there are several practical measures
which governments could take as
a first step towards improving the human
rights situation
of children. These include: amending
domestic
legislation to bring it in
line with international standards; giving
clear signals to law
enforcement officials that those who violate the
rights of children
will be punished; and ensuring that funds are
available to secure the
smooth operation of the judicial process for
children.
Amnesty International's
report also contains recommendations to armed
opposition groups.
Specifically, that they should make clear to all
those they command
that torture and deliberate or indiscriminate
killings will not be tolerated
and that all civilians should be treated
humanely, that
they should prohibit the compulsory or voluntary
recruitment into their
armed forces of anyone under the age of 18, and
that they should ban the use of
anti-personnel mines.
The human rights organization
also says that the international community
-- governments,
international agencies, businesses and ordinary people
can play an important role in
protecting children's rights in South Asia
by raising
human rights concerns with regional
governments and
supporting defenders of
children's rights within the region. Businesses
in particular should ensure that
their partner companies or subsidiaries
do not employ
children in dangerous conditions, or contribute to
ill-treatment of children.
"South Asia's children
represent one quarter of the world's children --
what happens to them
is important for children globally," Amnesty
International said. "This
year is the 50th anniversary of the Universal
Declaration on Human
Rights (UDHR). Children are fully entitled to the
rights it contains."
"The best possible
commemoration of this milestone in human rights will
be to ensure that people in
South Asia celebrating the 100th anniversary
will be able to look back
on a life of full enjoyment of the rights
contained in the
UDHR."
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