Nepal, July 9 -- Dignity is the defining feature of human rights. By birth, every human being is endowed with this intrinsic moral worth. It is absolute; no regime, no ideology and no circumstance can justly strip an individual of it. Yet, the decade-long armed conflict that ravaged Nepal between 1996 and 2006 directly defied this fundamental law of nature. By recruiting, weaponising and ultimately abandoning nearly 3,000 children, the architects of the war did not just violate the human rights of these minors, but also robbed them of their basic humanity.

On June 12, nearly 19 years after the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) verified the children used by the Maoists and labelled them 'disqualified' from being recognised as army personnel, a ...