India figures among the four countries that have seen a marked increase in systematic attacks on schools, students and teachers between 2006 and 2009, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) report has said.
The other three countries were such attacks have increased are Afghanistan, Pakistan and Thailand.
The report also finds that children are abducted to fights with arrows and guns in India. The UN cites the story of Tarrem Kosa who spoke to Human Rights Watch (HRW) about how the Naxalites came to recruit him when he was in class eight.
“I was studying in an ashram school (government-run residential school) when Naxalites came to my hostel. They took four students from my school, but after 10-12 km the other three were sent away, and only I was kept,” he told HRW.
According to the report, Kosa who was 13 or 14 at the time, was trained to use bows and arrows, and then he was given a rifle and trained to plant bombs.
In India, nearly 300 schools were reportedly blown up by Maoists between 2006 and 2009, according to the report. These include 18 in the first half of 2009 in Jharkhand and Bihar and 50 in those two states in the whole of 2009.
The UN found that dozens of schools have been occupied for security operations including at least 37 in Jharkhand in the first half of 2009. In February 2007, Chhattisgarh government sources claimed that more than 250 schools had been blown up in recent months.
Other reports said that around 250 schools were blown up in 2006 and 2007, the UN study stated.
A Human Rights Watch 2008 report called Dangerous Duty: Children and the Chhattisgarh Conflict found that Naxalites were recruiting children aged between 6-12.
“The conflict in India’s Chhattisgarh state has irreparably damaged children’s lives. All parties to the conflict-Maoist rebels, state-supported anti-Maoist vigilante groups (known as Salwa Judum), and government security forces-have recruited children in different capacities that expose them to the risk of injury and death,” it read.
The UN study also found India among the 18 countries where children were voluntary or forcibly recruited from school, or en route to or from school, by armed groups or security forces for combat or forced.
It is estimated that in 2008 there were more than 250,000 children, around the world, in armed forces or groups.
The study recommends that in countries such as India where there is targeting of schools by the Communist Party of India-Maoist, evidence of such occurrences should be gathered along with investigations by international and national courts.
