Sri Lanka no longer in UN’s review on Children and Armed Conflict

The United Nations Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict has decided that children in armed conflict is no longer an issue in Sri Lanka.

The Working Group has adopted the ‘Draft Conclusions on the situation of children and armed conflict in Sri Lanka’ on December 19, 2012, thereby closing the dossier on Sri Lanka in the Security Council, a statement issued by the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York said.

Prior to adopting the Draft Conclusions, the Working Group has considered the report of the Secretary- General on Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka, and its recommendations in accordance with Security Council resolutions 1612 (2005) and 1882 (2009). The Mission had engaged a range of entities over the months on this issue.

According to the statement Sri Lanka’s rehabilitation and reintegration of former child combatants and the delisting of the TMVP and the Iniya Bharathi Faction from Annex II (‘Naming and Shaming List’) of the annual report of the Secretary- General contributed to this positive outcome.

In his opening remarks, Chair of the Working Group, Ambassador Dr. Peter Wittig, the Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations, has said that this would be the last time Sri Lanka will appear before the Security Council on the issue of children and armed conflict and congratulated Sri Lanka on its success.

The UN in June this year delisted Sri Lanka from the United Nations Secretary-General’s ‘List of Shame’ that lists countries where children are involved in armed conflict saying that the island nation “successfully completed Security Council-mandated programs to end the recruitment and use of children”.