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Mr Chair,
Anti-Slavery International would like to remind the Commission
that the current military regime of Burma, known as the State Peace
and Development Council, acceded to the Convention on the Rights
of the Child in July 1991.
However, in Burma today, many children are deprived of their fundamental
human rights including their right to education, to health and to
life. Particularly in the ethnic areas where armed conflicts are
taking place, children's right to life is severely undermined. And
when life is constantly under threat, children cannot possibly enjoy
other rights enshrined in the Convention.
Students in Papun District, Karen State, pointed out that children
do not attend school due to interrelated factors such as food scarcity,
malaria, other health problems and the instability caused by the
armed conflict. 1 UNAIDS reported last year
that one in three children will be "moderately to severely"
malnourished by the time they are five. 2
Amnesty International and other human rights organisations have
reported that large numbers of Burma's ethnic nationalities, including
children, are taken from their villages by the regime and forced
to work on so-called "development projects". 3
In Karen, Karenni, Shan and Rakhine State, children are often requisitioned
as porters, sentries, labourers on road construction, and even as
minesweepers. Internally displaced children are most vulnerable
in forced relocation sites or when hiding in the jungle.
[According to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers Global
Report 2001,] Burma is estimated to have one of the largest
numbers of child soldiers of any country in the world, with up to
50,000 children serving in both government armed forces and armed
opposition groups.
The girl child is particularly at risk in ethnic nationality area
and conflict zones. On 7 January 2002, two Shan girls aged 16 and
17 were raped by SPDC troops in Larng Khur Township while fleeing
to Thailand .4 On 19 February 2002, two Karen
girls aged 17 and 18 were raped by a people's militia leader 5
at a forced relocation site in Palaw Township, Tenasserim Division.6
Unfortunately these are not isolated incidents.
As a result of the ongoing civil war, more than one million are
internally displaced, over 130,000 have taken shelter in refugee
camps in Thailand, and another million are found as migrant workers
in Thailand, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, etc. Amongst them, the
majority are children.
In a society where children's fundamental rights to grow and thrive
are severely deprived, what can we expect for the future of that
society? In order for children in Burma to enjoy their fundamental
rights enshrined in the Convention, we urge the Commission to call
on the State Peace and Development Council, to:
- Undertake a comprehensive review of Burma's national legislation
to ensure conformity with the Convention;
- Sign and ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention
on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children
in Armed Conflict;
- Stop the use of children as forced labourers and as child soldiers;
- Address the health and education crisis of children by providing
an adequate allocation of the GDP to social services to all children;
- End the systematic forced displacement of ethnic nationalities;
and
- Ensure that all reported cases of abuse, rape and/or violence
against children be rapidly and thoroughly investigated, with
appropriate judicial sanctions applied to perpetrators.
Thank you.
1 Voices of these students are excerpted from
their writing on My Village and Education, a summer teaching
project undertaken by Naw May Oo from the Indiana University School
of Law, in June-July 2001, Papun District, Karen State. See http://www.kawthoolei.org/index2.htm,
for more information on the present state of education and food
scarcity in Karen State's conflict areas.
2 Quoted in UNFPA, United Nations Population Fund Proposed Projects
and Programmes: Recommendation by the Executive Director; Proposed
Special Assistance to Myanmar, 13 July 2001 (UN Doc. DP/FPA/MMR),
para. 5.
3 Amnesty International (USA), Children's Human Rights Action
Appeal, Myanmar [Burma]. Found at: http://www.amnesty-usa.org/children/021600labor.html
4 Shan Human Rights Foundation, Monthly Report, February
2002
5 People's Militia or Pyithusit is a village defense force formed
and backed by the Burmese army.
6 For details, please see the Mergui-Tavoy District Information
Department, Karen National Union, Tenasserim Division, monthly human
rights report dated February 2002. Also at: www.karen.org
(News Section).
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