This report seeks to examine the situation of children in the ongoing conflict armed in Indian-Administered Jammu and Kashmir (IAJK). It looks primarily at the situation of children in the conflict in IAJK during 2003 to 2017. It demonstrates that serious crimes have been perpetrated against children in IAJK, including killings, arrests and sexual violence. It also describes the impact of violence on the education of children. It concludes that children are one of the most targeted groups of state violence in IAJK.
Topics: the nineties (1990 - 2003), assessment of violence against children from 2003 to 2017, children before the law: illegal and administrative detention, sexual violence against children, impact of conflict on the education of children, violence against students, recommendations
Terms: violations of international humanitarian law, custodial torture of minors, custodial killing of minors, custodial rape of minors, enforced disappeareances of minors, recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, arbitrary detention of minors, mass violence targeting minors, denial of humanitarian access, Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA), Jammu Kashmir Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), legalized impunity, systematic lawlessness, denial of access to justice, denial of children's rights, orphans, occupation of schools, militarization of schools, attacks on schools, August 1998 Sailan Massacre, February 2006 Doodhipora Massacre, March2003 Nadimarg Massacre, June 1999 Mohra Bachain Massacre, mass killings by Rashtriya Rifles, January 2018 rape and murder of Asifa Bano, killings of minors by improvised explosive devices, killings of minors by artillery near Line of Control, JK Juvenile Justice Act, list of children killed 2003 - 2017
The number of casualties suggest that each year since 2003, on an average every year at least 26 children were killed either by government forces, alleged militants, unidentified gunmen, explosions caused by littered shells or because of the shelling between Indian and Pakistani forces at the Line of Control (LOC).
It is our belief that the violence against children in Jammu and Kashmir as per our estimates could be much higher than available figures suggest as the trends in reporting cases of violence against children wasn’t prominent in the first decade of 2000’s. However, the period of 1990 to 2005 was the deadliest in terms of scale of violence in Jammu and Kashmir, as the majority of the total killings since the start of armed conflict happened in this period.
The report also lays bare that there are no legal and normative processes or practices protecting children’s rights in Jammu and Kashmir – as those laid out in JK Juvenile Justice Act, 2013 are not followed by the state functionaries.
A 2012 study by United Kingdom-based charity Save the Children found that Kashmir valley has 215,000 orphans ‘out of which 37% have lost one or both parents to the prevailing conflict’.
The fifteen-year period from 2003 to 2017, witnessed not less than 318 killings of children (in the age group of 1 to 17) in various incidents of violence in Jammu and Kashmir. The killing of 318 children constitutes 6.95% of the civilian killings in last fifteen years, as 4571 civilians have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir in the same period (2003 – 2017).
The large-scale militarization in Jammu and Kashmir in general, and Kashmir valley in particular, has a direct impact on children’s unimpeded access to education as hundreds of schools and educational institutions have come under the occupation of the Indian armed forces in the last three decades of violent conflict.
March 2018
Originally published
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