United Nations Security Council Arria Formula meeting

“Addressing Challenges of Children without Parental Care in Conflict Settings”

(1130 hrs EST/2200 hrs IST; 3 December 2021)

INDIA STATEMENT

By

Mr. Ashish Sharma

First Secretary

At the very outset, I would like to thank the delegation of Vietnam and all the co-sponsors for organizing this meeting. I also thank the briefers for sharing their insights on this issue.

Mr. President

Children are the foundational blocks of our future. This invariably requires protecting, nurturing and empowering them. The best interest of the child should be at the forefront of all our endeavours.

To begin with, the child’s family plays the most important role in the development of a child. Mahatma Gandhi had said and I quote “Every home is a university and the parents are the teachers”.

Children should live in an environment which is supportive of their holistic development. This environment is provided not just by the family, but also the society and the State at large. Unfortunately, we are not living in an ideal world. We witness situations of armed conflict around the world. Children remain most susceptible to suffering and are particularly vulnerable to volatilities of armed conflicts. It is therefore our common and primary responsibility to protect them.

Over the last two decades the UN Security Council has actively engaged in this pursuit and significant progress has been achieved to protect children in situations of armed conflict. However, as conflicts continue to flare up in various parts of the world, children continue to suffer.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further magnified the risks children face and has increased the need for their protection. It has made them susceptible to grave violations, particularly through recruitment and abduction. It is, therefore, important that Member States keep child protection concerns at the core of their pandemic response measures and recovery plans.

Mr. President

National governments have the primary responsibility for protecting the rights of the children as mandated by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We encourage Member States to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.

Member States should adopt robust legal frameworks for protection and promotion of child rights. The aim should not be merely protecting children from child-related crimes but also to provide them with holistic development opportunities, including free and compulsory primary education.

Close cooperation between the UN and its Member States concerned is critical for developing an effective and sustainable policy for repatriation and reintegration of children affected by armed conflict.

States should adopt an inclusive approach to provide protection to child victims during the rehabilitation and reintegration process in post-conflict situations. Assistance to national governments for capacity building and strengthening legal and operational tools for child protection is vital.

Mr. President

We are witnessing a dangerous and worrying trend in global terrorism and that is an increase in the number of children that are being recruited and involved in terrorism-related activities. Terror groups take advantage of the fact that children are the most susceptible to manipulation for radicalization and indoctrination in violent extremist ideologies.

We reiterate our call for ending impunity of all actors responsible for inciting and perpetrating grave violations and abuses against children. There must be greater accountability and sincere efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice by governments from whose territory such entities operate.

To conclude, we would like to reaffirm our firm commitment and steadfast support to UN endeavours to protect children in armed conflicts.

I thank you