General Assembly Security Council

Statement

by 

Ambassador Bhagwant S. Bishnoi
  ACTING PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF
INDIA TO THE UNITED NATIONS

at the 

 Open Debate of the Security Council on Children and Armed Conflict

 

7th March 2014 , New York

 

Mr. President,

 

1.We thank you for providing this opportunity to member states to share their views on an important subject.  We also thank your delegation for the very useful Concept Note. 

 

Mr. President,

 

2.In one of the many religions that we have in India, God himself is depicted as a child.  The child is, indeed, divine.

 

3.Notwithstanding the divinity, child soldiers have been used in wars since times immemorial.  Talking of contemporary times, it were drummer boys who led Napoleon s initial attack in the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Only to be shred to pieces by gun fire from the other side.  Large numbers of women and children were also willfully killed in concentration camps and by the indiscriminate air raids of World War II.

 

4.We have heard from Mr. Alhaji Babah Sawaneh of Sierra Leone today. We have a battle associated with a UN peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone.  On 10 September 2000, the British Special Forces launched Operation Borras to rescue British soldiers who had been captured by the West Side Boys.  While the operation was successful, it led to casualties.

 

5.Looking at the DRC theatre today, we find extensive use of child soldiers by various armed groups.  MONUSCO has itself noted, with concern, allegations that 30-40% of the NDC/Sheka elements may be below the age of 18 years.  Despite this evidence, the Security Council has authorized the creation of an Intervention Brigade to carry out targeted offensive operations.  The rules of engagement are, however, silent on engagement with child soldiers. The traumatizing nature of such engagement will also have to be considered.

 

Mr. President,

 

6.We share the view in the Concept Note that those who exploit children should be held to account.  We also agree that the most effective way of doing so is through capacity building of member states.  Action for this should originate from its consideration by the General Assembly and the Peacebuilding Commission.  National efforts on the ground should be supported by political missions.  Civilian protection advisers embedded into peacekeeping operations would, themselves, only be able to perform a limited role.

 

7.The political will to address the problem needs to go beyond the theatre of operations.  We need to address the economic and social marginalization of the poorest nations that is driving hundreds of millions into the kind of childhood that could well make them part of tomorrow s problem rather than tomorrow s solutions.  It is this understanding that explains the importance that our delegation attaches to an ambitious Post-2015 Development Agenda that has in-built means of implementation as well as the required enabling environment for its achievement.

 

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