Internally
Displaced Persons (IDPs), the most vulnerable victims of conflict constitute
a huge number, estimated at more than two hundred thousand people in Nepal
since 1996. Most of them have taken refuge in the Kathmandu Valley. But
the IDP problems have received less attention despite the gravity of the
issue. One of the grave consequences of the armed conflict is the suffering
of the innocent children. They have been forcefully recruited and deployed
as fighters or informants in the combat, they were debarred from education
as schools were closed or destroyed. When a family is made homeless or
displaced or a breadwinner is killed, it is the children and women who
suffer the most.
Displacement
of children has increased the vulnerability of this group. If education
is considered a basic fundamental right of all children, the many children
who are unable to attend school or access any educational service are being
deprived from enjoying this basic right. Moreover, poverty and ignorance
of the guardians and the poor conditions of the public schools are the
additional factors to the agony of the children belonging to low income
groups or urban poor in Kathmandu.
All
of these have constituted a series of challenges to the question of schooling
of the children as a fundamental right. We intend to draw attention of
all the concerned authorities in the government, educationalists, I/NGOs
and International Development Partners to the problems and look forward
to whatever assistance is possible for mitigation of the problems.
Bhagawan
Ratna Tuladhar
UNICEF
Project Coordinator
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