Editorial
Not over yet
Government must implement its plan to rehabilitate children affected by conflictTargeting children during conflict is an inhumanely old tactic. During the Rwandan genocide in 1994, an estimated 300,000 children, including newborns, were slashed, gunned, or burned to death in less than four months, according to the UN. The killings were targeted at not only destroying the enemy but also its future generation. Yet, a large number of children unrelated to warring parties also remain equally at risk during conflict. Many are caught in the crossfire and forced to witness unmentionable horrors while others are seriously injured or permanently disabled. In Nepal’s decade-long Maoist war, more than one-third of the victims of sexual violence were children—many under 15—according to OHCHR’s Nepal Conflict Report 2012.
Forty-thousand children were displaced during the conflict while 8,000 were either orphaned or separated from their families since the start of the conflict, according to a 2005 National Human Rights Commission report. The figures, however, are questionable and the Peace Ministry admits authentic data on children affected by the conflict remains missing. Even so, in 2010, the government came up with a National Plan of Action for the rehabilitation and reintegration of children affected by war. The document mentions the goal to first gather data on those children. Then, it plans to provide assistance to children, who were displaced; wounded during conflict; sexually exploited or born out of it; parents or guardians were killed or disappeared; schools seized by any of the warring parties; or schooling disrupted due to conflict associated with an armed group, among others.
Four years later, the plan awaits implementation. The government must immediately begin work on its plan, for further delay will only worsen the state of children who need urgent support. It must collaborate with NGOs working on child rights that already have an extensive network to ascertain data on conflict affected children. NGOs, for their part, should constantly pressure the government to accelerate the process. The media should also highlight issues of children affected by conflict as they often cannot speak for themselves, unlike other victims’ groups.