Human Rights Watch has accused Syrian opposition groups of recruiting children as young as 15 to take up arms under the guise of offering them an education. In a new report, HRW also claims that 14 years olds are recruited in support roles. Extremist Islamist groups including the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) have specifically recruited children through “free schooling” campaigns, says the rights group, that include weapons training; the child fighters have been given life-threatening tasks, including suicide bombings.
The number of children fighting with armed groups in Syria is not known. However, by June 2014, the Violations Documenting Centre, a Syrian monitoring group, had recorded 194 deaths of “non-civilian” male children in Syria since September 2011.
The 31-page report, “‘Maybe We Live and Maybe We Die’: Recruitment and Use of Children by Armed Groups in Syria”, documents the experiences of 25 children and former child soldiers in Syria’s armed conflict. HRW interviewed children who fought with the FSA (Free Syrian Army), the Islamic Front coalition and the extremist ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, as well as the military and police forces in Kurdish-controlled areas. The report does not, for logistical and security reasons, cover all armed groups that are alleged to have used children in Syria, in particular pro-government militias.
The children HRW interviewed had fought in battles, acted as snipers, manned checkpoints, spied on hostile forces, treated the wounded on battlefields, and ferried ammunition and other supplies to the front lines while fighting raged. They gave various reasons for joining non-state armed groups. Many followed their relatives or friends, while others lived in battle zones without schooling or other options. Some had participated in public protests that motivated them to do more, or had suffered personally at the hands of the government. While all those interviewed were boys, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) police force and armed wing, the People’s Protection Units, have enlisted girls to guard checkpoints and conduct armed patrols in Kurdish-controlled areas.
According to “Majed”, 16, Jabhat Al-Nusra in Daraa recruited him and other boys in his community by providing free schooling at a local mosque that included military training and target practice. He said that commanders asked children as well as adults to sign up for suicide attacks. “Sometimes fighters volunteered, and sometimes [commanders] said, ‘Allah chose you.'”
Using children in armed conflict violates international law. “Syrian armed groups shouldn’t prey on vulnerable children – who have seen their relatives killed, schools shelled, and communities destroyed – by enlisting them in their forces,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, Middle East children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “The horrors of Syria’s armed conflict are only made worse by throwing children into the front lines.”
Governments supporting armed groups in Syria, added Motaparthy, need to press these forces to end child recruitment and use of children in combat. “Anyone providing funding for sending children to war could be complicit in war crimes.”
ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra have targeted children for recruitment by providing military training in school settings or as part of broader education programmes run by the groups. Former recruits described how leaders gave children particularly difficult or dangerous tasks and encouraged them to volunteer for suicide attacks. “Amr”, who fought with ISIS in northern Syria when he was 15, said that his unit leaders encouraged him and other children to volunteer for suicide bombings. He said that he signed up reluctantly but was able to get away before his turn came up.
Some armed groups have taken steps to end the use of children in the conflict. In March, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, a coalition of opposition groups supported by the FSA, announced its commitment to comply with international humanitarian law, including to “refrain from the recruitment of children and the use of children in hostilities”. The coalition said it had implemented “new training… to eliminate the recruitment and participation of children in armed conflict.” The coalition said further in a letter to Human Rights Watch that the FSA Supreme Military Council also banned the recruitment and use of children in its Proclamation of Principles. Even so, Free Syrian Army commanders told Human Rights Watch that they continued to accept children in their ranks: “We would accept them whatever the age,” said a brigade commander from Jarablus.
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