Kathmandu, December 17:

Members of the Youth Partnership Project (YPP) today handed over a 13-point

charter of recommendations to Prime Minister Giraja Prasad Koirala and Foreign Minister Sahana Pradhan to combat trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children and youths.

The recommendations were drawn by a five-day regional consultation on the Youth Partnership Project in South Asia.

Youth and children participants from Nepal, India and Bangladesh prepared the recommendations, which ask their respective governments to speed up actions, implement existing laws, and introduce new legislation to combat trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) and youths which is rampant in the region.

The recommendations also suggest the governments to observe a regional anti-trafficking day and allocate budget for youth development.

The recommendations stress on upholding the existing international agreements to protect children from commercial sexual exploitation.

The recommendations also underscore the need to establish tripartite agreements or treaties and cooperate with NGOs to facilitate rehabilitation and/or repatriation of the sexually exploited children and trafficking survivors within six months of rescue. Addressing the concluding day of the consultation, Foreign Minister Pradhan said, “The conference of SAARC foreign ministers has already agreed to adopt common policy for youth development in the region and hopefully the 15th SAARC conference will adopt it.”

Mark Capaldi, deputy director of the End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purpose, said the charter of recommendations is very practical and genuine to prevent child trafficking and it deserved special attention of the governments concerned.