care, and birth registration to rural and remote areas and to ensure that children living in rural and remote areas are not marginalized. To effectively ensure service delivery in rural areas, the Committee encourages the State Party to increase the allocation of funds, human resource, and the required facilities. 12. The Committee notes with appreciation the Special Care Programmes designed to advance the protection and promotion of the rights of children with disabilities. The Committee recommends that the State Party undertakes measures to ensure that the Special Care Programmes do not exclude children with disabilities from mainstream services; but rather integrate them so that children with disabilities are enrolled within mainstream social structures. Furthermore, the Committee encourages the State Party to develop policies and programs towards the inclusion of children with disabilities in the delivery of basic services. In view of the fact that the State Party Report states that children with disabilities are excluded and stigmatized, the Committee strongly recommends that sensitization measures be put in place directed at encouraging change of societal attitudes towards children with disabilities and that protection of their rights through effective implementation of inclusion programmes, support systems, and prosecution of those who perpetrate discrimination against children with disabilities. 13. In addition, the Committee has been informed that there are cultural practices that discriminate children, particularly girls in matters of inheritance. The Committee, therefore; recommends that the State Party takes measures to eliminate such discriminatory customary practices by sensitizing communities and attach accountability against the perpetrators. Best interest of the child 14. The Committee is of the view that the best interest of the child encompasses procedural safeguards in the sense that judicial and administrative proceedings take the best interest of the child as their primary considerations. In this respect, it is important that judicial proceedings involving children in any capacity pass through an accelerated and speedy process. However, the Committee observed that judicial proceedings involving children do not guarantee the overarching principle of best interest of the child as the proceedings take a long period of time to be finalized. The Committee hence recommends that the State Party provides legislative safeguards for accelerated proceedings in cases where children are involved and sensitizes the judiciary on children’s rights including the relevance of application of the principle of the best interest of the child. 15. Furthermore, as mentioned in the State Party’s report, children are not mature enough to identify their best interests and hence in most cases what is considered for the best of the children is the decision that their parents make on their behalf. The Committee reiterates the stand taken by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) that ‘an adult’s judgment of a child’s best interests cannot override 5