Sex slaves and the use of children as prostitutes and soldiers will be among the issues in focus when South Asian leaders meet in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, this week.

The top leaders of the sevennation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) will initial two landmark conventions to protect women and children.

"Two pertinent conventions on controlling the trafficking of women and children in the sex trade and the welfare and protection of the children of the region are expected to be signed," Nepal's Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat said last week.

In South Asia, one of the poorest regions of the world, tens of thousands of women and children are forced into prostitution and some are held as sex slaves while an increasing number of children are deployed as combatants, child rights activists say.

The previous summit in Colombo in July 1998 decided to sign the "Regional Convention on Combating the Crime of Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution" and the "Convention on Regional Arrangements for the Promotion of Child Welfare in South Asia" in Nepal.

At the last summit, SAARC leaders decided to widen the scope of

the charter on preventing trafficking in women and children to go beyond the issue of prostitution.

However, SAARC member states have dragged their feet over ratifying UN conventions on protecting women and children.

Only Bangladesh has signed and ratified two key optional UN protocols on children engaged in armed conflict and prostitution.

Nepal and Pakistan have signed the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict and the Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, but not ratified them.