Tribal body presents children's plight to UNICEF
Source: Hueiyen News Service / Newmai News Network

Imphal, April 06 2011: All Manipur Tribal Union (AMTU) highlighted the "devastating future" of the children in insurgency infested Manipur in its representation to Karin Hulshof, UNICEF representative to India, who arrived in Imphal yesterday on a two-day visit as a "state guest" and left Imphal at about 1 pm today.

It urged the world representative to open a nodal office of UNICEF in Manipur in order to uplift conditions of the impoverished children of the state.

"Socio-economically feeble children of Manipur in general and rural tribal children in particular have a devastating future since they could not (have) access to proper education due to poverty and food insecurity flanked by insurgency," said AMTU president DP Panmei and its general secretary Romeo Bungdon.

The delegation from the world body arrived here behind schedule at about 4.30 pm following which all scheduled meetings had to be either cancelled or rescheduled.

They had been scheduled to arrive at 9 in the morning.

With people jostling to submit memorandums to the visiting dignitary who was hard pressed for time, AMTU's representations were among the few who were rewarded with an opportunity to meet Karin Hulsholf.

The memorandum painted a socio-demographic picture of Manipur for the benefit of the UNICEF representative, which it said is a "cultural mosaic delta of 35 ethnic tribes" .

Underscoring the plight of the children of conflict State of Manipur, the tribal rights body stated that in "militia-torn" State of Manipur, education and health care are managed by private players, making it immensely expensive for poor people to have access to the services.

The supplementary reasons for triggering the sorry state of affairs are absence of UN programs in the region and the limited economical resources of subsistence agriculture in the State, it said.

"That, owing to such critical social affairs, many children have fallen victims of child trafficking and flesh trade, being enticed by malicious rackets in the pretext of providing them free education, employment, food and cloths," said the memorandum, adding that poor and destitute children and orphans including HIV/AIDS affected people are the ones most vulnerable to the crime.

AMTU has therefore urged the visiting delegation led by Karin Hulsholf to "bestow upliftment packages concentrating on the targets of education, nutrition and health by providing separate and free children hospitals and destitute homes in selected rural areas and to open UNICEF nodal office in Manipur" .

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