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Reintegration
of child soldiers "taking too long" |
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KATHMANDU,
27 May 2008 (IRIN)
The
UN Children's Agency (UNICEF) and local children's rights groups are concerned
about the slow reintegration of child soldiers associated with former Maoist
rebels, also known as the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPNM).
Nepal's
decade-long armed conflict ended in November 2006 but thousands of minors
associated with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of the CPNM have yet
to be formally discharged and reintegrated, the agencies told IRIN on 26
May.
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| During
the registration of Maoist soldiers under the UN-supervised cantonment
of the Maoist Army in January 2007, the UN team found 2,973 minors, according
to the Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed conflict in
Nepal, released in April.
"The
discharge process has not gone as rapidly as UNICEF would have liked but
we are working to ensure these children are discharged and fully rehabilitated.
We consider the reintegration of minors an urgent priority and one that
should not be linked to any other consideration," UNICEF country representative
Gillian Mellsop told IRIN in Kathmandu. |
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The
initial plans for reintegrating the children have already been shared with
the interim government, including the CPNM, for their feedback, UNICEF
officials said
Consensus
delayed
NGOs
are concerned that the discharge and reintegration of child soldiers is
being delayed due to the absence of a new government, despite the successful
Constituent Assembly elections in April. An interim government has been
running the country since the peace deal was signed in 2006.
They
say the obstacle is a lack of consensus mostly among the leading parties
including CPNM, Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML)
and Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF).
However,
the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction (MOPR) said that preparations
were under way to develop an action plan and set up a tripartite committee
comprising the interim government, CPNM and UN to tackle issues related
to the discharge of child combatants.
The
Maoist leadership has told IRIN their party stands committed and blamed
the government for delays in the reintegration process.
"We
have a committee led by MOPR but it has shown little interest in focusing
on this issue," senior Maoist leader and parliamentarian Khim Lal Devkota
told IRIN.
Devkota
added that the government had failed to call even a single meeting over
the past year on the subject. "We are ready to help in the reintegration
[of child soldiers] process," he said, adding that there was a need for
a proper reintegration package.
UN
and NGOs on standby
"We
are already on standby to help as many child soldiers as we can but the
children have to be discharged first," said Tarak Dhital from Child Workers
in Nepal (CWIN), a national NGO.
UNICEF
said aid agencies were all prepared to give full financial support for
effective implementation of the national plan of action for reintegration.
"There
is a strong network of national and international NGOs and civil society-based
groups, as well as community-based organisations, ready to support the
reintegration of children discharged from cantonments," said UNICEF's Mellsop.
UNICEF
and NGOs are providing community-based reintegration support to 5,000 children
and youth in 58 districts affected by the armed conflict. These include
children who have been associated with armed groups and those who have
informally left the cantonments.
However,
UNICEF is concerned that the longer the children and youth remain in the
cantonments, and hence away from their families and communities, the more
difficult the reintegration process is likely to be once they are released.
The
re-integration programme is supported by the governments of Japan, Germany,
Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Austria and UK.
Credit
IRIN 2008
Copyright
© UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2008
[
This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
Integrated
Regional Information Networks (IRIN), part of the UN Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) |
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