Pakistan urged the United Nations Security Council to act quickly to protect children in war zones, particularly in Illegally Indian occupied Kashmir [IIOK], where Indian forces have been deliberately targeting children with pellet guns.
“The scale and intensity of today’s conflicts are stretching our capacity to protect children,” Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram told the world body.
“Nowhere is this grim reality starker than in today’s OK. More than 300 innocent Kashmiris, including women and children, were killed in fake encounters and staged cordon-and-search operations,” the ambassador said in his written statement to the Security Council.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged India to stop using pellets against children in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and to stop linking children with security personnel in any way in a report to the UN Security Council on Monday.
Pakistan informed the Security Council in a written statement that some of the worst atrocities and state terrorism occurred in IIOK in 2020:
As part of the collective punishment perpetrated on Kashmiri communities, more than 750 Kashmiris were gravely injured, 2,770 innocent Kashmiris were arbitrarily jailed, and 922 homes were destroyed.
“Such inhuman actions are not only in violation of the UNSC resolutions on Children and Armed Conflict but are also in breach of the ‘best interests of the child’ principle under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which India is a state party,” Ambassador Akram said.
The worsening situation and increased attacks against children in IIOK, as reported in the latest report of the Secretary-General, “calls for Security Council’s intervention by holding India accountable for its grave breaches of international humanitarian law and war crimes in IIOK,” he added.
According to Pakistan, the aggregate number of severe violations remained disturbingly high at 26,425, citing the Secretary General’s latest report. The continuous killing and maiming of children, the recruitment and deployment of child soldiers, sexual abuse and abduction, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access are all examples of these breaches.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has increased issues in the protection of children affected by armed situations, with humanitarian organizations finding it impossible to execute their work securely, according to the research.
“Whatever the causes of modern-day brutality towards children, the time has come to call a halt. These acts must end, and perpetrators must be held to account,” the ambassador said.
The Secretary General’s latest report also has expressed deep concerns on the “grave violations” against children in occupied Jammu and Kashmir by the Indian security forces. It also “raises alarm on the continued illegal detention of (Kashmiri) children, torture in detention and detention without charge or due process.
“In view of these serious concerns, the Secretary-General has rightly urged the Indian government to ‘immediately end’ such practices and take ‘preventive measures’ to protect children, including by ‘ending the use of pellets against children’ in IIOK,” Ambassador Akram said.
He informed the council that, despite multiple Special Rapporteurs and Mandate Holders of the Human Rights Council, as well as experts on Children and Armed Conflict, the human rights and humanitarian circumstances for the innocent children of IIOK have continued to deteriorate since August 5, 2019.
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