Call to discharge child soldiers

A human rights group has urged Burma’s military government to immediately discharge child soldiers from its army after a UN panel found that the practice was widespread there, in violation of international laws.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said 20% or more of Burma’s soldiers on active duty are under the age of 18.

Burma has an estimated 350,000 soldiers in its national army, making it the army with the biggest number of child soldiers in the world, according to Human Rights Watch and other groups.

“Burma’s use of children as soldiers is unacceptable,” Jo Becker of Human Rights Watch said in a statement today.

On Friday, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said it was “extremely concerned” at the use of children as soldiers by both the government and armed ethnic opposition groups in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The convention, which Burma ratified in 1991, prohibits the recruitment of children under the age of 15 or their use in armed conflict.

The convention states that signatories’ national laws overrule the convention. Burma’s own laws state that military recruits must be at least 18 years old.

The UN committee also urged the military government to discharge child soldiers, ensure that all new recruits are at least 18 and enlist voluntarily, and provide educational assistance to children affected by conflict.

The junta “should act immediately on the UN recommendations and end this terrible practice,” Becker said.

Human Rights Watch said after an investigation in 2002 that there was widespread forced recruitment of children as young as 11 to the military. At least 19 armed opposition groups also recruit child soldiers, although on a much smaller scale, it said.