UNITED NATIONS:
In the wake of “brutal surge” in violence against children in 2024, Pakistan told the UN Security Council that youths living under foreign occupation are particularly vulnerable to widespread abuses, and called for steps to ensure their safety and protection.
Speaking in the 15-member Council’s debate on ‘Children and Armed Conflict’, Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said that record high child rights violations were leaving “countless young lives maimed, starved, burned, frozen to death, or weakened by severe malnutrition.”
In this regard, he drew attention to, among others hotspots, the suffering of children in war-shattered Gaza and Indian-occupied Kashmir.
At the outset, the Pakistani envoy echoes the deep concern expressed in the UN Secretary General’s latest report, which details 41,370 verified grave violations against children in 2024, representing a shocking 25% increase compared to the previous year.
“We strongly urge continued reporting on the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, where human rights violations against children are, tragically, routine and continuing.”
Referring to the recent Indian aggression of May 6-7, 2025 against Pakistan, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar said that civilian areas were deliberately targeted, resulting in the martyrdom of 15 children in blatant contravention of the UN Charter and international humanitarian law.
Pakistan, he said calls for a thorough investigation of these grave violations against children and their inclusion in the forthcoming CAAC (Children and Armed Conflict) report.
Reacting to Ambassador Asim Iftikhar’s sharp words, Indian Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, while repeating New Delhi’s usual allegations, claimed that Pakistan was a promoter of terrorism and was also involved in the recent attack against civilians in. Pahalgam. He also claimed that Kashmir was an integral and inalienable part of India, and will always remain so.
Pakistani delegate Rabia Ijaz hit back immediately, accusing him of “distortion and denial” and a desperate and futile attempt to mask India’s crimes and culpability.
Exercising her right of reply, Ms Ijaz, a second secretary in the Pakistan Mission to the UN, said, “While hurling baseless accusations, India conveniently forgets its abysmal record of grave violations against children in occupied Kashmir — violations confirmed by the Secretary General’s annual reports and various human rights organizations.
“The tragedy of Kashmiri children growing up amid terror, trauma and repression is well known, a reality India cannot obscure with its patently false narratives.”
The Pakistani delegate also accused India of sponsoring terrorism and assassinations in Pakistan and across the globe, asserting that “our children have been brutalized by terrorist attacks that bear India’s fingerprints.”
The Army Public School massacre of 2014 claimed the lives of over 130 innocent children.
