Anti-Slavery International

Thomas Clarkson House, The Stableyard,

Broomgrove Road, London SW9 9TL

Tel:.+ 44 (0)20 7501 8920 Fax: +44 (0)20 7738 4110

e-mail: [email protected]

website: http://www.antislavery.org

UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Fifty-ninth session

17^th March – 25^th April 2003

Oral intervention by Anti-Slavery International delivered on 11 April 2003

Item 13 – Rights of the Child

Madame Chair,

Anti-Slavery International would like to call the attention of the Commission to the situation of children in Myanmar.

In 1991, Myanmar acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but, today, children continue to be denied their most basic rights and freedoms, and to be subjected to the most serious human rights violations.

Children are often requisitioned as forced labourers for road building, army camp maintenance, plantation work and as porters. Despite Order 1/99 prohibiting forced labour, this practice continues as reported by the ILO Liaison Office in its March 2003 report to the Governing Body [ref. GB-286/6]. Children, both girls and boys, have to performed compulsory labour to allow their parents to earn the daily income of the family.

Children as young as 11 are forcibly recruited as soldiers in the Army. A Human Rights Watch report of October 2002 estimates that as many as 70,000 children are being conscripted into the armed forces. They are subject to beatings and humiliation during training and, once deployed, they must engage in combat, participate in human rights violations against civilians, and are frequently abused by their commanders.

In Shan, Karen and Karenni States, the military regime have conducted campaigns of mass relocation of villages. These have particularly affected children. Displaced families were forced to move to relocation camps or went into hiding in the forest. Their education has been severely disrupted, malnutrition has become rampant and health care is totally inadequate. Many girls and women became victims of rape by soldiers [as documented in the report “Licence to Rape”].

Children from the Rohingya Muslim community in Northern Arakan State are denied the right of citizenship. According to the Citizenship Law of 1982, they are stateless at birth. Their movement is so restrictive that they must obtain a travel pass even to reach a neighbouring village.

Madame Chair,

Human rights abuses, displacement, malnutrition, lack of education and health care seriously hamper the mental and physical development of children in Myanmar. We would therefore urge the Commission to put pressure on the Government of Myanmar to fulfill its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Thank you.