Visiting Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, while addressing a press conference at the end of her six-day visit of Nepal, expressed her hope that the combatants, verified as minors by UNMIN, would be discharged by the end of February 2009.
PM Prachanda had given this commitment to the visiting UN official during their meeting, Friday.
"The UN country team stands ready to support former CPN-M child combatants to resume civilian life as they look to their future in a new peaceful Nepal," said Coomaraswamy in a statement distributed at the press meet, adding that the UN Security Council has "key interest" on this issue.
Coomaraswamy added that UNICEF and UNDP have developed integration packages for the child combatants "which will be tailored to the children´s needs, skills and long-term aspirations".
UN is interested to take the child combatants to civilian environment from military environment inside the cantonments.
The rights activist-turned UN veteran said the international community, led by the UN, stands ready to move from peace process to peace-building process in Nepal.
UNICEF Representative in Nepal, Gillian Mellsop, said the UN has already developed a discharge process. "We already have networks in 58 districts," she said, adding that the UN already has a programme in place for 7500 young people affected by the armed conflict. "We are not looking at up-scaling it," said Melsop.
During her meetings with ministers, government officials and political parties, Coomaraswamy had raised concerns regarding the impact of the continuing unrest on children in the Terai. "Armed groups and criminal gangs act with total impunity in parts of this region," said Coomaraswamy, who had met displaced children who had been forced to flee the violence, and and those children who ran away from their homes fearing recruitment by armed groups.
"Impunity for violence must stop and the rule of law must return to Nepal for peace to be given a chance and for children to live in security," she said.
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