Sadly this ideal, that children are our
greatest natural resource, is taken a little
too seriously by actors that see children as a tool for their armed conflicts. As military technology has developed and weapons have become lighter and simple to use, arming a child has never been easier. Armed actors prey on vulnerable children, often giving them no viable alternative than joining the military. In the world today there is an estimated 300,000 child soldiers, fighting in some of the most protracted and deadly conflicts around the globe. The poster image of a child soldier is a kid from Africa holding a semi-automatic weapon. While this image is both accurate and tragic, it is important to remember that child soldiers are everywhere.
Burma has more child soldiers than any country in the world. Just under one quarter of the world’s child soldiers are in the Burmese army. The Burmese army, which is used to rule the country with an iron fist, is believed to have 70,000 children among their recruits. Scarily, approximately 20 per cent of Burma’s military personnel are children. Armed opposition groups have between 6,000 and 7,000 child soldiers among their soldiers1.
A child soldier by international standards as defined in the 1977 Additional Protocols to the four Geneva Conventions is a person under the age of 15 years who is recruited to, and participates in hostilities. Furthermore, the Additional Protocol II, which is applicable to non-international armed conflicts, specifically states “children who have not attained the age of 15 years shall neither be recruited in the armed forces or groups nor allowed to take part in hostilities”. While Burma is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention it is accepted as customary international law.
The same definition is used by the Convention on the Rights of the Child to define a child soldier. Burma ratified this convention in August 1991 and is bound to comply with all articles of the convention.
Similarly, under Burma’s national Myanmar Defense Services Act (1947) the recruitment of child soldiers is prohibited. In May 2002 the Permanent Mission of the Union of Myanmar to the United Nations said “the government prohibits the enlisting of recruits under the lawful age (of 18 years). The under age are not allowed to apply for recruitment. Action is taken on any infringement of the Regulation under the Defense Services Act”2.
Approximately 20 per cent of Burma's military personnel are children
In addition to this statement, the SPDC established the Committee for the Prevention of Military Recruitment of Underage Children in January 2004. This committee was established to enforce Burma’s child laws and ensure that underage people (children) are not recruited into the military. However, this committee has done little, if anything to protect the children of Burma. Rather it has been used as a forum to attack the credibility and truthfulness of allegations from the international community relating to child soldiers in the Tatmadaw, the Burmese army, instead of addressing the problem. Complaints from family members regarding missing children that are serving in the armed forces are virtually ignored, and there has been no real move to demobilize child combatants. Furthermore there is no evidence of any case where an officer has been held accountable for illegal recruitment practices3.
Despite the claims by the SPDC that there are no underage persons in the armed forces, children are frequently recruited into the Burmese army. Some volunteer so that their families are, to some degree, protected from human right abuses, such as forced labour and arbitrary taxation that are regularly perpetrated by the military. Furthermore, the salaries promised by recruiters will significantly contribute to the family’s income, making the burden of living under the Burmese junta slightly lighter. However the vast majority are forced to join. Recruiters for the military regularly approach boys, as young 84, at bus and train stations, market and other public places. Most of the time the boys are given a choice: join the army or go to jail.
Army recruiters are rewarded for new soldiers they conscript. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, recruiters receive between 5,000 or 10,000 kyat per recruit they send5. Additionally, there are claims that soldiers can be discharged from the armed services if they fulfill a quota of new recruits.
Once recruited the children are sent to one of the country’s holding camp, Su Saun Yay in Burmese. The army processes their new recruits in these holding camps and sends them to military training schools. While being held at a Su Saun Yay the recruits receive bad quality food and were forced to work, either maintaining the camps or on money-making ventures such as brick baking and fish farming.
According to Human Rights Watch there are at least 22 military training camps in Burma. Training generally lasts between four and half and five months. Topics covered include small and large weapons, military tactic and deployment and military parades. Political indoctrination occurs informally, usually at night time in the form of repeating propaganda. Mistakes during training are punished with brutal beatings and sometimes not just for the recruit who made the error, but for the whole group. Following the completion of training, the soldiers are deployed into the Burmese army and they begin active duty.
The Burmese army is an incredibly hierarchical mechanism. Where each level is abused by those above them and in turn, abuses those below them. Child soldiers are at the bottom of this system. They are physically abused by their commanders, their wages withheld, denied leave and food rations stolen. They are given the most menial and degrading tasks, and are often forced to perpetrate atrocities against villagers in order to survive.
The impact on the children of being forced to serve as soldiers is devastating. As child soldiers often lack proper training and experience and have limited life skills, they are more likely to make mistakes in battle – and these mistakes are either fatal or they haunt them forever. Child soldiers have been shot, stabbed, and injured by grenades. Furthermore the frontline areas where child soldiers are sent are severely contaminated with landmines, and injuries and death from stepping on one are common
The impact on the children of being forced to serve as soldiers is devestating
However, the affects of being a child soldier are not just physical. The psychological impact on the children is just as devastating, if not more so. The coping mechanisms used by child soldiers to deal with the adult situation they find themselves in are those of a child. Some run away, others attempt to commit suicide and some successfully take their own lives, but most find a way to rationalize what is happening – distorting the fundamental sentiments of right and wrong, affecting their future behaviours, relationships and lifestyles. As child soldiers have been desensitized to violence, they themselves often become the perpetrators of abuse.
Non-state actors also have child soldiers in their armed forces. A Karen human rights activist said “when we were children we wanted to join the army to fight the SPDC to avenge all the atrocities that happened to our village”6. Due to the lack of educational and employment opportunities available to young people in the villages, joining the opposition forces is one of the few options available. In the past opposition groups have sent volunteers under the age of 18 to school, or have employed them in non-combatant roles, such as clerks. Sadly, due to the loss of territory and lack of resources, the implementation of this policy is becoming increasingly rare.
Child soldiers in the opposition forces are spared some of the brutality of their counter-parts in the Burmese army. Those in the opposition forces are not subjected to the same physical and mental abuse by their commanders and they are not forced to perpetrate human rights abuses against the civilian populations.
Regardless of whether children are serving in the state and non-state armed forces there is a need to initiate a disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) program (See Box). An effective DDR program is necessary, if child soldiers are to have some semblance of a normal life and become productive members of society. In order to implement an effective DDR program, children need to be removed from the conflict and placed in a peaceful environment.
No singular group is responsible for the implementation of a DDR program. Groups from all sectors of society should be involved, such as national and local government authorities, UN agencies, international non government organizations and grassroots and community based organisations. DDR programs can help child soldiers’ deal with the traumatic experiences they faced, learn new skills and regain some of their lost childhoods. This is not just important for the current generation of child soldiers, but for all children who lost their childhoods to the army to undergo some elements of a DDR program.
It is a tragic Catch 22 situation - the SPDC, who is actively recruiting child soldiers and rewarding people for doing so, is one of the key actors needed to implement an effective DDR program. Despite the overwhelming evidence that there are child soldiers in the Tatmadaw the SPDC still claims that it does not forcibly conscript or employ anyone under the age of 18 in their armed forces. Until the SPDC faces up to the truth that it systematically recruits children to be soldiers, what hope do the current and future child soldiers of Burma have?
What is DDR?
Disarmament: The collection of small arms and light and heavy weapons within a conflict zone. It frequently entails weapons collection, assembly of combatants and development of arms management programs, including their safe storage and sometimes their destruction. Because many child soldiers do not carry their own weapons, disarmament should not be a prerequisite for the demobilization and reintegration of child soldiers.
Demobilization: The formal and controlled discharge of soldiers from the army or from an armed group. In demobilizing children the objectives should be to verify the children’s participation in armed conflict, to collect basic information to establish the child’s identity for family tracing, to assess priority needs and to provide the child with information about what is likely to happen next.
Reintegration: A long-term process which aims to give children a viable alternative to their involvement in armed conflict and help them resume life in a peaceful civilian environment. Elements of reintegration include family reunification (or finding alternative care if reunification is impossible), providing education and training, devising appropriate strategies for economic and livelihood support and in some cases providing psycho-social support.
“Child Soldier Use 2003: A Briefing for the UN Security Council Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict”, United Nations Security Council, January 16th, 2004
Endnotes:
"My Gun was as Tall as me: Child Soldiers in Burma”, Human Rights Watch, 2002
Letter to HRW from the Permanent Mission of the Union of Myanmar to the UN, May 8, 2002
“Despite Promises: Child Soldiers in Burma’s SPDC Armed Forces”, Human Rights Education Institute of Burma, September 2006
“Growing Up Under the Burma Dictatorship”, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, August, 2003
Ibid
BI Interview, January 2006
To go to the other articles published in the September 2006 BI Newsletter click on the links below:
Approximately 20 per cent of Burma's military personnel are children
