The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, convening for its 35th session from 12 -30 January 2004, examined the most voluminous report in the history of the United Nations treaty bodies, the first periodic report of the government of India. The report is about 500 pages long. After the pre-sessional hearing, the government of India submitted another 62 pages by way of responses. With over half a dozen alternate NGO reports, the members of the Child Rights Committee have an uphill task if they are to effectively examine the implementation in India of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The most striking aspect of the government of India's first periodic report is that it has reportedly been written with the financial support of the UNICEF. This practice is not specific to India since UNICEF does provide financial support to hire professionals to write the periodic reports of governments all over the world.
The problem does not lie with financing per se but with what UNICEF financed. It would appear from the document that India is a model state when it comes to the rights of the child. The report maintains a stoic silence on the torture of children. It instead restricts the depiction of the violation of the right to life in India to female infanticide, presumably because it is practiced by society and the state's role is to heroically resist such obscurantist practices. And despite the Union Home Ministry providing information about internal armed conflicts in 14 out of 28 states, there is not a single reference to the effects of armed conflicts on children. The only reference in the report to armed conflict is about Punjab where the problem ended almost a decade ago!
The Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights in its alternative report, "The Status of Children in India", as well as in its oral submission on 9 October 2003 before the CRC Committee, raised the ethical issue of financing a report which, despite its volume, fails so comprehensively to address the issue of child rights and the violations thereof. UNICEF's representatives stated that the organisation only facilitated dialogues between the NGOs and governments. As some UN agencies hide behind a veil of secrecy, only UNICEF officials in Delhi are aware as to whether it financed the hiring of professionals and publication of the report. Till such time as a full public disclosure is made, there is no option but to accept the official version. In the meanwhile all speculation on the exact nature of UNICEF's involvement that is bound to come up cannot do the organisation much good.