CZOP launches campaign to enable every child to return home this Dashain

As estimates put some thousands of children directly affected by the conflict are living away from their families, the Children as Zone of Peace campaign has kicked off a week-long intensive multimedia campaign to enable each one of them to return home this Dashain.

"Since Dashain is traditionally observed as a time for family to get together, we want to use this occasion to send message to all concerned about the need to send back children to their families," said Rupa Joshi, assistant communication officer at UNICEF, which is also involved in the campaign.

According to Kundan Aryal, president of CZOP-Nepal, there are no actual data pinpointing the number of such affected children. "But we can guess that there are few thousands of them," added Joshi. While many of them are living life of displaced persons, some have been involved directly or indirectly in armed activities.

Two days ago Save the Children Alliance had released a report stating that around 40,000 children in Nepal are not able to go to schools due to the conflict. The CZOP, an alliance of like-minded NGOs working in the area of children's rights, has been continuously appealing to all concerned about the need to keep children away from the conflict. "Under no pretext can we accept children being put under risk due to conflict by any side," said Gobinda Adhikari, a member of the working committee of the CZOP. nepalnews.com Sep 13 06