UN: SUDANESE CHILDREN STILL ENDURING GRAVE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS - UN REPORT: 13/9/2007 (MaximsNews.com, U.N.)

UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com@ U.N./ - 13 September 2007 – Sudanese children continue to face grave violations of their human rights, from being recruited and used by armed forces and groups to suffering rape or sexual abuse at their hands, according to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s latest report on children and armed conflict in the African country.

Mr. Ban says the situation in general for Sudanese children “is showing small signs of improvement,” but cases of killings, abductions and rapes are still being recorded and the ongoing conflict in the Darfur region means there is limited humanitarian access to children at risk.

The Secretary-General urges all the parties to the Darfur conflict – where more than 200,000 people have been killed and at least 2.2 million others made homeless – “to take concrete steps” to protect the rights of children in the war-torn and impoverished region on Sudan’s western flank.

Given that, the report welcomes the action plan on child recruitment and reintegration that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reached with the Minawi wing of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), the faction of the rebel group that signed the Darfur Peace Agreement with the Sudanese Government last year.

But he calls on the signatories to the agreement to carry it out immediately so that child soldiers can be released and allowed to reintegrate with their families.

In the report Mr. Ban voices deep concern that “sexual violence against women and girls continues with impunity throughout the country,” and especially in Darfur, where rebel groups have been fighting Government forces and allied Janjaweed militia since 2003.

He calls on Khartoum to step up its efforts to enforce the rule of law, including by establishing child and women protection units within the police force and by training social workers and judicial officials.

In the south, where a comprehensive peace agreement in January 2005 ended a 21-year civil war, Mr. Ban says rights violations are more of an inter-communal nature, resulting from years of conflict and the consequent breakdown of the rule of law.

He urges both the Government of National Unity and the Government of Southern Sudan, which were formed following the peace accord, to end the recruitment and use of children in their armed forces in line with the provisions of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict – which Sudan has ratified.

The two Governments should also undertake an independent verification exercise with the support of UNICEF and the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to assess and identify those children currently in the armed forces or their allied groups and to set up a regular monitoring system, Mr. Ban says.

He also reiterates previously expressed concerns that children continue to be systematically abducted or kidnapped in both the south and in Darfur, and urges the Government and armed groups to end that practice immediately.

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