Thousands of child soldiers in NE, J&K

At least 3,000 children – 500 in India’s Northeast and Jammu & Kashmir and about 2,500 in Naxal affected states – were currently involved in armed conflicts.

This was revealed in a report “India’s Child Soldiers” prepared by Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) and released on Thursday.

According to ACHR report, the figure of child soldiers given in the report was a conservative estimate considering that the Maoists follow the policy of forcibly recruiting at least one cadre from each Adivasi family, alleged ACHR director Suhas Chakma.

ACHR also claimed that the report was the first ever comprehensive study on the subject in India and accused the government of India of defending the records of the armed opposition groups, officially designated as “terrorist groups” on the recruitment of child soldiers before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

ACHR said India’s first report on the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict to the UN Committee in 2011 stated that there was no recruitment of child soldiers including by the armed groups in India.

ACHR has urged the government of India to inquire as to why the recruitment of child soldiers by the officially designated “terror groups” was concealed from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.