This report is the first comprehensive report on the recruitment and involvement of children in India’s burgeoning internal armed conflicts which currently afflicts 197 out of 640 districts. It has been prepared for submission as a shadow report to the Periodic Report of the Government of India on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. India had submitted its Periodic Report in 2011 and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is scheduled to consider it during its 66th pre-sessional working group to be held in Geneva from 7-11 October 2013.
Apart from the field research, this report has been prepared based on the “Technical Seminar on Preparation of the Shadow Report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict” organised by Asian Centre for Human Rights on 23-24 March 2013 in New Delhi. The participants included mainly activists from the conflict affected areas and their names are being kept confidential as disclosure may put them at risk of reprisals from the armed opposition groups (AOGs) which have been recruiting children.
This report also includes India’s periodic report, proceedings before the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) on recruitment of children as boy orderlies under the Madhya Pradesh Police Regulation, India’s surrender and rehabilitation policies on the AOGs, and finally, Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict for awareness raising in India.
