Deciphering Legal Safeguards for Child Soldiers in North East India Vis-À-Vis International Standards

Abstract

With more than a third of its population below the age of 18, India has the largest child population in the world. However, India is no paradise for a child to live in irrespective of whether he or she is inside or outside the house. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989, has been ratified by India. Since the Convention is a set of international standards and measures intended to protect and promote the well being of children in society, the Indian legislature has also passed several legislations to give effect to them. However, a quarter century after the adoption of the Convention and its ratification by India it cannot be said that the Indian state has successfully provided protection to its children. The North Eastern parts of India are no different and children in these areas are prone to a host of protection concerns. A prominent but no so popular malady is that of child soldiers. Instead of carving out a bright future in school, children are being taught to operate lethal weapons. However, the issue is not quite in focus as there is lack of actual documentation of cases of child soldiers. This is quite evident in the reply given by the Indian delegation in response to a question posed by an expert member of the Committee on the Rights of the Child during presentation of the combined third and fourth periodic report of India on its implementation of the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the initial reports of India on how the country is implementing the Optional Protocol to the Convention on children involved in armed conflict and the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. In response to a question on recruitment of children by non-State armed groups, the Indian delegation said that the Indian Government was aware from various non-governmental organization and media reports that non-state groups had resorted to the recruitment of children from the age of six years old and that there was no way to ascertain the number of children recruited due to the clandestine nature of the activities of those groups. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that there is no government programme providing for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers into the mainstream. Armed with lethal weapons, addicted to alcohol and drugs, dependent on their recruiters, and unable to get away from their clutches, child soldiers are a classic case of being the victims as well as potential perpetrators. There is a huge body of international humanitarian law and international human rights laws, which provides for a plethora of protections against recruitment of children as child soldiers. Nationally, India also has its fair share of laws governing the same. The point of focus of this paper is to decipher the adequacy and effectiveness of the same vis-a-vis international standards.