Guwahati, February 06: With the primary objective of protecting rights of children and promoting their welfare, the Manipur Alliance for Child Rights (MACR) has put forward several demands to all the political parties contesting in the 9th Assembly elections.

Speaking to reporters today at Manipur Press Club, secretary of Manipur Mahila Kalyan Samiti and senior of MACR S Sharaju said that MACR was established on December 23, 2005 to initiate some measures towards addressing the problems being endured by children in the State.

To redress the issues of forcing under-aged children to work several commercial establishments like hotels, vehicles workshops etc and to mitigate the hardships of orphaned children, a thorough understanding in required between the Govt and the people, Sharaju observed.

As such, the Government and the people should identify the areas of priority concerning policies and measures to protect the rights of children and promote their welfare.

Saying that a charter of demands would be submitted to all political parties so that the next State Government may take up some positive measures to redress the plight of children whose rights have been denied, she maintained that even as it may take time to implement the demands, it would be a great step towards addressing the hardships of these children.

Some of the basic points included in the charter of demand are increasing expenditure on education and health care to 10 percent and 5 percent respectively, to ensure education up to 10 standard to all children, prohibition of all forms of child labour, extension of PDS benefits to all families below the internationally approved poverty line (US $ 1 per day).

The charter of demands also urged for provision of ART facilities to all children living with HIV/AIDS, prevention of using educational institutions as military camps for counter insurgency operations, special package for rehabilitation, education, trauma counselling and health care for children in armed conflict situation, constitution of State Commission for Children etc.

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