India no longer on UN list of nations with children in armed conflict

India no longer features in the United Nations General Assembly Security Council report on Children and Armed Conflict report. For the first time in a decade, India has resisted featuring on the list which lists recruitments of children into armed groups. Since 2010, India was in the company of nations such as Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Lake Chad basin, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Philippines for alleged recruitment and use of boys by armed groups in Jammu and Kashmir. Not featuring on the report is good news and has been made possible by the efforts of the Ministry of Women and Child Development. 

In November 2021, Indian officials, including the secretary of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the Ministry of External Affairs, the Ministry of Home Affairs met Virginia Gamba, special representative of the secretary-general for children for the UN in New Delhi. This led to identify priority national interventions to enhance the protection of children.  

This followed a series of inter-ministerial, technical-level meetings with the UN to identify areas of enhanced cooperation for the protection of children. A technical team from the office of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Violence against Children visited India from 27-29 July, 2022.

Subsequently, a workshop was conducted on strengthening child protection in Jammu and Kashmir in November 2022 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Government of Jammu and Kashmir as well as the UN. 

All statutory service delivery structures like the Child Welfare Committee and Juvenile Justice Boards under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015 were established. Consequently, India has been dropped from the report in 2023.