Pakistan slams UN report

Pakistan has criticised the United Nations for not listing the two “blatant” situations of foreign occupation, perpetrated by Israel and India, in its report on ‘Children and Armed Conflict’, calling the omission the “most visible anomaly” in the document.

Speaking at the UN Security Council, which met under UK’s presidency, Ambassador Munir Akram highlighted the immense suffering of children under foreign occupation, saying they were going through “horrible experiences”.

“This is, therefore the most visible anomaly in the report that the two blatant situations of foreign occupations perpetrated by Israel on the one hand and by India in Jammu and Kashmir on the other, are not listed in the report and are given a free pass,” the Pakistani envoy told the 15-member council on Wednesday.

Last year, 27,180 grave violations were committed against children caught up in war – the highest number ever verified by the UN, according to Virginia Gamba, the secretary-general’s special representative for children and armed conflict, who presented her latest annual report.

In his remarks, Ambassador Akram said the fact that one in six of the world’s children lives in areas affected by conflict required that more must be done to ensure their safety, welfare, and prosperity.

Specifically referring to the “suppression” of the children of Jammu and Kashmir by the Indian occupation forces, he said that an entire generation of Kashmiri children had grown up in a climate of unspeakable fear, violence, and repression that further aggravated since August 5, 2019, when India unilaterally annexed the occupied and disputed territory.

“We still remember the gut-wrenching picture of a three-year-old Kashmiri boy sitting in shock on the dead body of his grandfather after he was killed by the Indian forces,” the Pakistani envoy said in an emotionally charged voice.

Ambassador Akram said an estimated 13,000 Kashmiri children and youth have been captured by India’s 900,000 occupation forces, while thousands of innocent Kashmiris, including women and children, had been killed in staged search operations to extract confessions or secure commitments not to participate in Kashmir’s struggle for self-determination.

In 2022, he said, Pakistan released a dossier of 3,432 cases of war crimes perpetrated by India’s senior officers, urging the special representative to demand the release of 30,000 abducted youth.

“The Secretary-General’s latest report has rightly urged India to implement measures, including the prohibition of the use of lethal and non-lethal force on children, ending the ‘use of pellet guns’ and preventing all forms of ill-treatment of children in detention, and protection of children from sexual offences,” the Pakistani envoy said.

Pakistan, as one of the earliest signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, remained fully alive to its responsibilities under the convention, he said, adding that wide-ranging legal, policy, and operational measures focusing on protection of children in security situations had been taken.

Earlier, briefing the Security Council, Gamba pointed out that government armed and security forces were the main perpetrators of the killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access.

She said that the secretary-general’s report on this topic covered 27,800 violations against 18,890 children in 2022 — 8,630 killings or mutilations, 7,622 instances of recruitment and 3,985 abductions. Further, instead of receiving protection, child victims were punished for their circumstances. In 2022, 2,496 children were deprived of liberty for their actual or alleged association with parties to the conflict.

Also noting positive achievements, Gamba spotlighted the situation in Yemen, where the UN signed an action plan with the Houthis to end and prevent violence. In Iraq, the government signed an action plan to prevent the recruitment of children by the Popular Mobilisation Forces and repatriated 1,448 Iraqi children from north-east Syria.

The UN is also engaging with parties to the conflicts in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Ukraine and the Russian Federation, she reported.

APP