UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has expressed criticism towards the United Nations for its failure to include the two “blatant” situations of foreign occupation, carried out by Israel and India, in its report on ‘Children and Armed Conflict’. Pakistan has described the omission of these situations as the “most visible anomaly” in the document.
Ambassador Munir Akram stressed the plight of children living under foreign occupation during his address at the UN Security Council. He described their experiences as “horrible.” Akram expressed concern that the report overlooked the blatant foreign occupations by Israel and India in Jammu and Kashmir.
Virginia Gamba, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, presented her latest annual report, stating that last year witnessed 27,180 grave violations against children affected by war, the highest number ever verified by the UN.
Akram emphasized that one in six children globally lives in conflict zones, urging greater efforts for their safety and well-being. He specifically mentioned the suppression of children in Jammu and Kashmir by Indian occupation forces, noting the climate of fear, violence, and repression that intensified since August 5, 2019, when India unilaterally annexed the disputed territory.
Recalling a heart-wrenching incident, the Pakistani envoy mentioned a three-year-old Kashmiri boy sitting in shock on his grandfather’s lifeless body after he was killed by Indian forces. Akram stated that approximately 13,000 Kashmiri children and youth have been detained by India’s 900,000 occupation forces, while numerous innocent Kashmiris, including women and children, lost their lives in staged search operations.
Pakistan’s 2022 dossier revealed 3,432 war crimes by Indian officers and demanded the release of 30,000 abducted youths. The Secretary-General’s report rightly urged India to implement measures such as prohibiting the use of force on children, ending the use of pellet guns, and protecting youth from ill-treatment and sexual offenses.
During the Security Council briefing, Virginia Gamba highlighted that government armed and security forces were the primary perpetrators of violence against kids, attacks on schools and hospitals, and obstruction of humanitarian access.
The Secretary-General’s report for 2022 documented 27,800 violations against 18,890 children, including killings, mutilations, recruitment, and abductions. Parties to the conflict deprived 2,496 children of their liberty in 2022 due to their actual or alleged association with them.
Gamba highlighted positive progress, including the UN signing an action plan with the Houthis in Yemen to halt the violence. The Iraqi government signed an action plan to halt child recruitment by the Popular Mobilization Forces and repatriated 1,448 children from northeast Syria. The UN is also engaging with parties involved in conflicts in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Ukraine, and the Russian Federation.
