Press Release

Child sexual abuse increasing

August 21, 2008

In the last six months (Jan-June 2008), CWIN recorded 64 percent of rape cases of children below 16 years among the incidents of sexual abuse in Nepal. Similarly, nine percent were the victims of incestuous rape. This fact is revealed by the Half yearly report "The State of the Rights of the Child 2008" published by CWIN-Nepal. According to the report, 121 cases of trafficking were reported in which 28 percent of cases involved children below 16 years.

In the report CWIN has recorded a total of three thousand five hundred eighty-four (3584) cases/incidents of child rights violations within six months (Jan-June 2008) that includes child labour exploitation, child death, lost children, child abuse, child sexual abuse, child trafficking, and children in conflict and child delinquency. The issue of child protection is very serious as seen in the report.

Among 432 cases of child abuse, killing and domestic violence, 16 percent of incidents were of corporal punishment (physical and mental abuse) in schools. The Spokesperson of CWIN, Mr. Tarak Dhital said, "This is a very serious issue. The incidents of such abuse in schools are ever increasing. Such incidents show that we are still insensitive towards the rights of our children."

According to the report, 55 incidents of children in prison were reported in which 49 children were staying in different prisons with their parents and 6 minors were serving sentence in prison on burglary charge.

Many children are missing due to various reasons in our society. In this period 126 missing children were recorded and among them 38 children were abducted with intention to gain ransom from their parents. In this regard, nearly 6 children are abducted every month.

Similarly, many children are deprived from education due to different violent conflict and closure of schools due to strikes or bandhs in Terai. Even after the end of armed conflict, schools were frequently closed due to strikes in the last six months period. One teacher and 3 children were injured in explosion of bomb which the children had brought to school.

The report has also pointed out that in this period, information of 99 children was published citing that they can be given for adoption. This means 16 children in average in a month are liable to be given for adoption by different organizations in Nepal.

The death of children in different accidents has increased. In the last six months, among 252 children's accident cases nearly 59 percent of children were killed in accidents.

Likewise 25 children were rescued from child care homes being run for children's protection due to unacceptable and unfavorable conditions in these homes.