Sri Lanka has rehabilitated nearly 600 child soldiers recruited by the Tamil Tiger terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) within one year.
Addressing the meeting on the rights of the child at the 19th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council Thursday, Sri Lanka highlighted the enormous challenge it faced to rehabilitate and reintegrate 595 LTTE child soldiers who were in the care of the government after the end of the war in May 2009.
Sri Lanka's National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) and the Office of the Commissioner General of Rehabilitations have successfully introduced and implemented a scheme for comprehensive rehabilitation and reintegration of the former child combatants, Sri Lanka's delegate Ms. Pruyanga Wickremasinghe told the Council.
All child soldiers were rehabilitated under a UNICEF-assisted program and returned to their families. Despite their participation in terrorist activities and not a single combatant was prosecuted, Sri Lanka said.
