KATHMANDU, 20 November (IRIN) - Local child rights groups have strongly criticised Maoist rebels and the interim government of seven national parties for neglecting the issue of child soldiers during Nepal's ongoing peace process.

On 8 November, both parties agreed to a landmark peace deal after nearly 11 years of armed conflict that led to the deaths of over 14,000 people.

Although they have agreed to closely control their armies and begin rebel disarmament, there has been no consensus on how to deal with the thousands of children working as soldiers with the rebel forces, local NGO Children as Zone of Peace (CZOP) has said.

CZOP is a national coalition of child rights organisations that has been campaigning for the release of children from the army followed by their rehabilitation and reintegration into mainstream society.

Putting a figure on the number of children serving with rebel forces has proved very difficult.

"We know that a large number of children are still working for the Maoist army but their leaders have failed to act responsibly over their welfare," said CZOP's Tarak Dhital, who estimated that around 10 percent of the rebel soldiers were children under 18 years old.

The rebels said in July this year that they had 36,000 fighters in the field, although Nepalese officials estimate the rebels' strength at around 15,000.

CZOP reported on Friday that children still continued to be recruited by the Maoists and that around 700 children were recruited over the past seven days in a bid to boost numbers in front of visiting UN officials involved in monitoring the process of the cantonment of soldiers and arms management.

"It is time that the government and Maoist leaders gave top priority to help children working as soldiers and now is also the right time for the Maoists to publicly declare that they will remove all children from their army and political activities," said Sudip Pathak, President of the Human Rights Organisation of Nepal (HURON).

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the European Union (EU) have also raised serious concerns over the issue of continued recruitment of under age Nepalese by the rebels.

An EU Troika fact-finding mission, led by Pekka Metso, Director for Asia in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, which ended its three-day visit to Nepal on Friday, said that child recruitment by the Maoists was totally unacceptable.

"There can be no place in today's Nepal for abductions, extortion and political violence," the EU team stated.

UNICEF's Country Representative in Nepal, Suomi Sakai, has said that boys and girls should be allowed to study and grow and not be recruited for conflict-related activities.

"Children who have been associated with the armed conflict should be released immediately and sent back to their families and communities," Sakai said.

A large protest rally was organised in the capital on Friday to draw attention to children affected by the conflict. One young woman displaced by the conflict at the demonstration said she was too fearful to return home.

"I don't want to return home as the Maoists are still taking children to join their army," said the 15-year-old, who requested not to be named. She had fled from her home in far west Nepal after the Maoists forcefully recruited her friends last year.

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