According to a recent interview on Radio Free Asia with Jo Becker, known child soldier expert at Human Rights Watch, Burma has shown little improvement in their use and recruitment of child soldiers. According to Becker, U.N. Security Council’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict has had difficulty locating and aiding child soldiers in that country, mainly due to a lack of access to conflict zones. “The United Nations team in Burma is severely restricted in what it can do, where it can go, and what kind of information it can collect. And so it’s been very hampered in coming up with any documentation about the recruitment and use of child soldiers by Burma’s military.”
- See also this article in May from Irrawaddy.org on child soldiers in Burma.
- From the blog Children With Guns, an entry on child soldiering in Burma.
- Human Rights Watch information on child soldiers in Burma.
Human Rights Watch has stated that ”the Burmese regime may have the largest number of child soldiers in the world—with thousands swept up in massive recruitment drives. Some are as young as 10, their enlistment papers routinely falsified to indicate their ages as 18 or older.”
Filed under: Burma, Human Rights, United Nations , burma, child soldier, children of war, Human Rights, United Nations, victims of war, War
