After 12 years, UN drops India from its report on children & conflict

The report of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on ‘Children and Armed Conflict’ 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 said Wednesday that this became possible due to the introduction of various policies and institutional changes since 2019.

An official statement said a road map for cooperation and collaboration on child protection issues was developed by the Ministry under the guidance and leadership of Smriti Irani, Union Minister of Women and Child Development.

Indevar Pandey, WCD Secretary, who had  been in constant touch with the UN on the matter, told The Indian Express: “This is a big achievement for India, having our name removed from this list after a 12-year period… many of the systems were simply not in place earlier in J&K.”

“The Juvenile Justice Act was not implemented and the juvenile homes there were not functioning properly. Other infrastructure such as Child Welfare Committees, Juvenile Justice Boards, Child Care Homes have since been established,’’ Pandey said.

The UN Secretary-General’s report stated:

“In my previous report, I welcomed the engagement of the Government of India with my Special Representative and noted that the engagement may lead to the removal of India as a situation of concern.”

“In view of the measures taken by the Government to better protect children, India has been removed from the report in 2023,’’ Guterres said.

Pandey said: “Many of the measures suggested by the UN have already been carried out or underway. We have carried out training of security forces in protection of children. The use of pellet guns has already been suspended. And the JJ Act and POCSO Act are being implemented.”

The 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”.

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 Ministry of WCD in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the J&K government with the participation of the United Nations.

“All statutory service delivery structures like the Child Welfare Committee and Juvenile Justice Boards under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015 have been established. In view of the measures taken by the Government to better protect children, India has been removed from the report in 2023,” the Ministry stated.