Use of child soldiers common in Burma

Nga Ngai
Mizzima News: August 1, 2006

Echoing the statement of the United States Ambassador Jackie W. Sanders, Alternative Representative for Special Political Affairs to the United Nations, a Burmese rights activist said Burma continues to have a large number of child soldiers and urged the international community to intervene.

Aung Myo Min, director of Human Rights Education Institute of Burma, said the use of child soldiers in Burma is rampant not only in the Burmese military but also in ethnic armed rebel groups.

Talking to Mizzima, Aung Myo Min said, "In Burma adults do not want to join the Amy, and even if they are coerced and recruited, they can run away. So children are lured into the army."

Sanders in his statement in an open debate of the Security Council on children and armed conflict on July 24 pointed out the severity of the use of child soldiers in a number of countries including Burma and extended US's support to the UN Secretary General's commitment to end it.

Rights groups have recorded that Burma has as many as 70,000 child soldiers both in the ruling junta's army and in the ethnic armed rebel groups.

"Children are routinely picked up off the streets, forced into the army, and never see their families again. Many are forced to fight against armed ethnic opposition groups and carry out human rights abuses such as rounding up villagers for forced labour, burning houses and even massacring civilians," Sander said in his statement.

"As an important element of an effort to eliminate such activities, we welcome effective monitoring and reporting of all such violations," Sanders added.

Aung Myo Min explained that the Burmese junta, in its irrational plan of expanding the military, has largely equipped children as young as 12. Some were coerced and others lured.

Despite establishing a committee to restrict the use of child soldiers, the Burmese junta has never actually referred to the committee and has no practical role in eliminating abuse of child rights, said Aung Myo Min.

The Burmese junta has claimed to have eradicated the use of child soldiers among its troops.

Meanwhile, ethnic armed rebel groups denied having any child soldier in their camps despite records showing as many as 4,000 children in deployment.

Padoh Man Sha, general secretary of the Karen National Union told Mizzima that child soldiers are practically banned in the KNU. He said that if there are any child soldiers in the KNU it is in violation of the groups rule.

However, he admitted to the KNU using child soldiers in the 1990s and explained that most boys, whose parents or families and villages were destroyed in the war between the KNU and the junta, joined on their own volition to fight the junta that had brought misery to their lives.