Amnesty International regularly receives reports of rape and other forms of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the police and members of the security forces in all regions of India. The organisation has repeatedly raised these concerns with government officials.
It is now one year since the Government of India took the welcome step of signing the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment adopted by the United Nations in 1984. In the year of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the Government could consolidate this first step toward providing full legal protection from torture, including rape, for all citizens of India, by ratifying the Convention at the earliest.
International campaign launched against the use of child soldiers
Geneva — A new coalition of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) against the use of child soldiers was launched today in Geneva and New York. According to latest estimates, more than 300,000 children under 18 years of age are fighting in armed conflicts around the world and hundreds of thousands more are members of armed forces who could be sent into combat at any moment. Although most recruits are over 15 years of age, significant recruitment starts at 10 years, and the use of even younger children has been recorded.
The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers has been formed in response to the failure of negotiations within the United Nations to agree a prohibition on keeping children out of armed forces. The Coalition is calling for the adoption and implementation of an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child to raise the minimum age for military recruitment and use in hostilities to 18 years. The current international minimum age is only 15 years, although most countries do not accept under-18s in their armed forces.
Speaking in Geneva at the launch, the Coalition Coordinator, Stuart Maslen, declared that: The use of children as soldiers has no place in a civilised society and must be stopped. The Coalition is calling upon the international community to ensure children are given strict legal protection against involvement in armed conflict.
The Coalition is being headed by a Steering Committee of six NGOs — Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch, International Federation Terre desHommes, International Save the Children Alliance (represented by Swedish Save the Children), Jesuit Refugee Service, Geneva, and Quaker UN Office, Geneva. It will be coordinated by a small Secretariat based in France close to Geneva.
Information on the numbers of child soldiers in the world, including the recruitment ages in governmental armed forces, is also being published on the Internet by Swedish Save the Children(