CORE Press Statement on child recruitment by RPF

Imphal, 6th April 2013

CORE Centre for Organisation Research & Education
Indigenous Peoples’ Centre for Policy and Human Rights in India’s Eastern Himalayan Territories
NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations
Loisanglen:
Post Box No. 99
1st Floor, Ibotombi Building, Babupara
Imphal 795001, Manipur, INDIA
Tel/Fax: +91 385 244 13 19
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.coremanipur.org

The Centre for Organisation Research and Education (CORE) views the reported clarification from the Revolutionary People's Front (RPF), a non-state armed group of Manipur, about the two adolescent indigenous girl students of Grace Reach Academy, Kakching almost a month since they were reported missing from 10th March 2013 as "safe and sound" in their camp as "willing" recruits, as a scandalous disgrace for an organisation, which is generally viewed as progressive and disciplined, and that had unilaterally acceded to the four Geneva Conventions' Common Article 3 in 1997 by declaration during the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Sub-Commission, at Geneva, and had at the same time called upon India to ratify the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II). Further, the two girls were claimed in the reported clarification to be 16 years old, which is contradictory to the age given by the school's Principal and respective families as 14 and 15 years old. It is a relief that the girls are reportedly alive and apparently safe, but all this is only a small reprieve and a large measure of anxiety for the parents of the girls. Any claim of "willingness" by a child is always questionable. Can an adult male claim that he had consensual sex with a child because she or he was "willing"?

On the other hand, the state government's vague references to trace, rescue and restore the two girls to their families clearly sets a negative precedence to the public that the democratic voices and rights of the indigenous peoples have sunk to the delayed and denied policy. It seems that the State's Home Minister, Mr Gaikhangam supports the recruitment of minors into armed organisations if they are "willing". He is very happy to distribute expensive new and deadly toys to his commando policemen and attend lots of functions, but is unsurprisingly apparently quite uninformed of his true role or purposes as a minister and his people's representative.

Fixing the minimum age of 16 years by RPF for recruiting into its armed wing the People's Liberation Army (PLA) can only lead to increase in the number of security forces atrocities with maximum impunity to commit extensive human rights violations of juveniles in the name of counterinsurgency in the state causing doom to future generations. It may further reinforce the state's position that even children are terrorists and justify killing them. The use of child soldiers is universally condemned, and is unacceptable under any circumstances, be it political or social. While the recruiting of any person below the age of 18 years into any armed organisation is against prevailing national and international standard norms, especially the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and its second Optional Protocol that builds upon past standards such as ILO's Convention 182 that defined child soldiering as the "one of the worst forms of child labour" and prohibits armed groups from any recruitment, we find a recent resurfacing of this trend in Manipur alarming.

Documentation of 1528 cases of alleged extrajudicial executions in Manipur by the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights in Manipur and the UN in 2012 revealed that almost 100 children were reportedly murdered in cold blood by security personnel and the police in Manipur. One of the six persons investigated by the Supreme Court panel on fake encounters in Manipur recently was a boy of merely 14 years of age. Such a grim situation will prevail in Manipur if the recruitment of children is sought justification by any armed organisation on whatever grounds. In these contexts, we find the reported clarification insupportable.

Veiled pressures to civil society organisations, students' organisations, and other community based organisations will not calm the situation. CORE is concerned that there is an apparent lack of understanding among civil society that a child of Manipur is a child to all of us, and not to be confused by community, race, sex, religion or any other. Protests have consistently identified only one child of the two children who were missing since 10th March 2013. Only the respect, protection and promotion of universal human rights will result in a responsible citizenry, living in peace and harmony among the diverse society in Manipur.

Indigenous children must be protected by everyone from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development, taking into account their special vulnerability and the importance of education for their empowerment (Article 17[2] of the UN Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples). According to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (General Comment No.11 of 2009: Indigenous children and their rights under the Convention), we also need to ensure that indigenous women and children enjoy full protection and guarantees against all forms of violence; recruitment into an armed organisation does not provide such protection or guarantees to the two girls. In the case of children, the best interests of the child cannot be neglected or violated in preference for the best interests of the group. Particular attention needs to be paid to the risks indigenous children face in hostilities and take maximum preventive measures in consultation with the communities concerned. Under these principles, military conscription of indigenous children under the age of 18 years must be avoided at all times. For these reasons, the Revolutionary People's Front of Manipur is courteously urged to review their existing policy at the earliest regarding the minimum age of recruitment to conform to the now universally accepted norm of "straight-18". The said two adolescent girl students should be released safe and sound to their respective parents immediately on the grounds of international human rights and humanitarian principles and law.