Maleeha denounces rampant violations of int’l law affecting children

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has made a strong plea to the international community to find effective ways to protect children in conflict zones and occupied territories, citing their woeful plight in Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK), Palestine, Myanmar and Yemen.

Speaking in the UN Security Council, Pakistan UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi denounced the rampant violations and abuses of international law affecting children, saying this disturbing trend shows no sign of abating.

Ambassador Lodhi, who was participating in a debate on “Children and Armed Conflict”, said that children were often at the heart of conflict and in consequence directly targeted, with their homes and schools destroyed and food and water supplies deliberately cut off.

Under foreign occupation, she said, they were subjected to arbitrary arrests, detention and torture.

The Pakistani envoy said the recent report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights found multiple cases of children under 18 years being arbitrarily detained and tortured in Indian occupied Kashmir under the garb of a black law, the so called Public Security Act.

“The plight of children in Palestine, Indian occupied Kashmir, Myanmar and Yemen should galvanize the international community to find new and effective ways to protect those most vulnerable,” Ambassador Lodhi told the 15-member Council. The most effective way to protect children, she said, was by preventing and resolving conflicts, ending foreign occupation and sustaining peace.

“This must be our top priority and that of this Council,” she declared. The Pakistani envoy’s firm statement on the plight of oppressed people in Indian occupied Kashmir evoked a response from India’s delegate Tanmaya Lal.

Noting that today’s Council’s debate is a thematic in nature, the Indian delegate accused Pakistan of misusing the forum by referring to situations that are extraneous to the discussion.

In doing so they have referred to a so-called report about the State of Jammu and Kashmir, he said, adding, “An unfit documentation has been used in the forum.”

Exercising his right of reply, Javaad Chatta, a second secretary at the Pakistan Mission to the UN said India’s fabrications do not lend its credibility but only satisfy the cause of self-delusion. The statement, he said, demonstrates India’s farcical position on the issue of real human right violations committed by its officials against civilians in the illegally and brutally occupied territory of Kashmir.—NNI