Sri Lanka was actively involved in developing consensus for the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the CRC on Children in Armed Conflict. We have ratified this protocol. Whilst all these mechanisms are in place the time has come to address our minds to terror groups, who have managed to evade the law in the pursuit of their senseless ambitions causing immense human suffering. In the long term, the democratic states of the world need to take strong, punitive and coercive action against such non-State actors, operating on their soil directly or indirectly. The Committee on the Rights of the Child, in its capacity as the Treaty Body monitoring compliance with the CRC and the Optional Protocol, must stand firm against terrorism and urge the international community to ban these terrorist organizations.
Children have a right to be participants in mapping out their own future.
They have a right to their own beliefs and to utter them. They should be an integral part of the programmes and strategies of governments, directed towards their care. They rely on us in all their innocence to give them a hand for a better tomorrow. We as delegates representing independent entities of the international community have met, discussed and concluded hundreds of international conferences in the past. Yet have we been unable to combat the growing menaces that threaten peace at every level and jeopardize the young.