CHILD LABOUR NEWS SERVICE

15 May 2000

Bangkok: Asia ranks close behind Africa in the use of child soldiers by government forces and rebel groups alike, according to a report released last week. The survey by the non-governmental Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers says the use of children in armed conflicts is particularly widespread in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Afghanistan.

"Although not all have been deployed to the front line, many have fought and died for causes about which they may have had little or no understanding," said the report. "Others have joined armed groups because of their own traumatic experience of abuse at the hands of state authorities or lack of economic alternatives."

Most rebel movements in the region use and recruit child soldiers, including Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers and the Philippines' Abu Sayyaf Islamic separatist group the report reveals.

More than 300,000 child soldiers are believed to be involved in conflicts in more than 30 countries worldwide, the coalition says. The survey was issued ahead of the Asian conference on the Use of Child Soldiers scheduled for this week in Kathmandu, Nepal.

The four-day conference will be attended by the representatives of 15 governments and more than 100 non-governmental organisations, along with United Nations experts. Similar conferences have already been held in Africa, Latin America and Europe.

"Asia ranks close behind Africa in the appalling use of tens of thousands of children who are being used literally as canon fodder in almost every conflict in the region.

The survey says that Myanmar (Burma) "has one of the highest numbers of child soldiers in the world, both within governmental armed forces and non-governmental armed groups." Some children, often under 15 years of age, are attracted by the prestige and power of the military, but many others have been forced to join. Orphans and street children are particularly vulnerable.

Many of the children serving in Myanmar's army are not combat soldiers, but rather support personnel, such as porters. It is also an obvious that the armed terrorist groups are systematically conscripting children to be soldiers. The coalition report had said that: "Through economic circumstance and tribal ties, children have also joined ethnic minority armed groups pitted against the Burmese military."

In Sri Lanka, thousands of teenagers, male and female are forcibly and routinely recruited by the liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam. In Cambodia, the challenge now is "the demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration of former child soldiers," the report says.

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