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Associated Press September 14, 2006 BANGKOK, Thailand -- Myanmar's military regime continues to recruit large numbers of children into its army, sending boys as young as 12 to battle the country's ethnic minorities despite a high-level committee set up to stop the practice, human rights groups said Friday. The boy soldiers invariably suffer extreme stress and sometimes commit suicide as they are sent to the front lines, the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma said in a report. Some are forced to participate in atrocities, it said. The exiled activist group, based in Thailand, said the plight of child soldiers in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has remained essentially unchanged over the past four years. A senior Myanmar information ministry official denied the report. "These allegations of child recruitment are based on information compiled by anti-government groups and dissidents," said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he has not been authorized to speak to the press. "We are not doing it as a policy," said the official, adding the government prosecutes those who unwittingly recruit underage children. Following criticism by the international community, the ruling junta in 2004 set up a Committee to Prevent the Recruitment of Child Soldiers to curb the practice, and Myanmar law prohibits recruitment of individuals under 18 into the armed forces. In both 2003 and 2005, the secretary-general of the United Nations reported to the UN Security Council that the Myanmar government was in violation of international laws prohibiting the recruitment and use of children as soldiers. "Unfortunately the Burmese government's high-level committee to end child soldier recruitment has had no real impact on the problem," said Jo Becker of Human Rights Watch, which sent out a press release announcing the report. "Until the government takes genuine steps to implement its laws, children will continue to be snatched off the streets and forced into military service." Human Rights Watch, a US-based human rights group, in 2002 published an extensive report that estimated 70,000 soldiers in an army of about 350,000 were under the age of 18. The new report by the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma, based on interviews with 50 boy soldiers, said that recruiters frequently use coercion and deception to fulfill recruitment quotas set by the government. "Join the military or go to jail," is a frequently voiced threat as the youngsters are detained at army posts, police stations or recruiting offices where they are forced to lie about their age, the report said. "Children are routinely beaten if they make mistakes during training," said the report. "Child soldiers often cry themselves to sleep in quiet humiliation, scared that any show of weakness could invite additional reproach from fellow soldiers and officers." After training they are sent to the front lines to fight ethnic minority rebels or to serve as porters, cooks or servants for higher ranking officers, the report said. "As soldiers, children are forced to perpetrate violence and commit human rights violations. They take part in destroying villages suspected of supporting ethnic insurgent movements; they also participate in extrajudicial killings," the report said. Rebel groups such as the Karen National Union have also used child soldiers, although the 2002 Human Rights Watch report found that child recruitment among them was generally decreasing as their forces had shrunk in size and resources. The Myanmar military is currently pursuing a now monthslong campaign against the Karen, more than 18,000 of whom have reportedly been displaced from their homes. Refugees to Thailand describe villages being burned and civilians killed by the troops. Human Rights Watch says that since 2000, 108 governments worldwide have ratified new international standards that prohibit all forced recruitment of children under the age of 18 or their use in armed conflict. "Burma's continued recruitment of child soldiers separates children from their families, subjects them to abusive military training, and exposes them to horrific violence," said Becker. "The vast majority of the world's governments have rejected the use of children as soldiers. Burma should too." URL: story url
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