“At first I was
so scared… then I got used to it,” said Ayman, who began fighting with an FSA
brigade in Salqin when he was 15 years old.
“Maybe we’ll
live, and maybe we’ll die,” said Omar, who began fighting at age 14 with Jabhat
al-Nusra.
Non-state
armed groups in Syria have used children as young as 15 to fight in battles,
sometimes recruiting them under the guise of offering education, Human Rights
Watch said in a report released on Monday. The groups have used children as
young as 14 in support roles. Extremist Islamist groups including the Islamic
State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) have specifically recruited children through free
schooling campaigns that include weapons training, and have given them
dangerous tasks, including suicide bombing missions.
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. Human Rights Watch interviewed children who fought
with the Free Syrian Army, the Islamic Front coalition, and the extremist
groups 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 allegedly have
used children in Syria, in particular pro-government militias. 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.”
The
number of children fighting with armed groups in Syria is not known. By June
2014, the Violations Documenting Center, a Syrian monitoring group, had
documented 194 deaths of “non-civilian” male children in Syria since September
2011.
The
children Human Rights Watch 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 front lines while
fighting raged. They said they joined non-state armed groups for various
reasons. 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 personally suffered 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, enlisted girls to guard checkpoints and conduct armed patrols
in Kurdish-controlled areas.
Boys have joined armed opposition groups for
various reasons. Many simply followed their relatives or friends. Others lived
in battle zones without open schools, participated in public protests, or had
personally suffered at the hands of the government. Islamist groups such as
ISIS have more aggressively targeted children for recruitment, providing free
lectures and schooling that included weapons and other military training.
“At first I was so scared…then I got used to
it,” said Ayman, who began fighting with an FSA brigade in Salqin when he was
15 years old.
Others interviewed echoed his words. Few had plans
or real hopes for their future beyond the next battle. “Maybe we’ll live, and
maybe we’ll die,” said Omar, who began fighting at age 14 with Jabhat al-Nusra.
International humanitarian law (the laws of
war) and international human rights law ban government forces and non-state
armed groups from recruiting and using children as fighters and in other
support roles. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, which Syria ratified in 2003, bans non-state armies from recruiting or
using children under age 18 in direct hostilities. Conscripting or enlisting
children under 15, including for support roles, is a war crime under the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Several of the children interviewed said they
fought with two or three different armed groups fighting Syrian government
forces. Some -- like Amr who said he received US$100 a month -- received monthly
salaries of up to $135, while others said they participated without pay. Many
attended training camps where they learned military tactics and had weapons
training.
Children who wished to leave armed groups and
resume a civilian life told Human Rights Watch they had few options to do so.
Saleh, 17, said he fought with the Free Syrian Army at 15 after he was detained
and tortured by government security forces. He later joined Ahrar al-Sham, then
left to join the Jund al-Aqsa, an independent Islamist armed group. “I thought
of leaving [the fighting] a lot,” he said. “I lost my studies, I lost my
future, I lost everything. I looked for work, but there’s no work. This is the
most difficult period for me.”
Some armed groups told Human Rights Watch that
they prohibit child recruitment, or have taken preliminary steps to end the
practice. In March 2014, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and
Opposition Forces, a coalition of opposition groups supported by the Free
Syrian Army, announced that it had implemented “new training for Free Syrian
Army members in International Humanitarian Law to eliminate the recruitment and
participation of children in armed conflict.”
COMMITMENTS
If they have not already done so, armed groups
operating in Syria should publicly commit to end recruitment and use of
children under age 18, and should demobilize all fighters or others under 18
currently in their ranks, Human Rights Watch said in the report.
Those recruited under age 18 but now no longer
children should be free to leave opposition forces. Armed groups should also
work with international agencies specialized in child protection to
rehabilitate and reintegrate these children into civilian life. Finally, they
should ensure that all officers under their command understand the ban on
recruiting or seeking assistance from children, and establish age-verification
procedures they must follow to enforce it. Officers responsible for recruitment
who continue to enlist children should be appropriately disciplined.
To address the practice of children joining
armed groups in Syria, UN bodies should seek public commitments from armed
groups not to recruit or enlist children under age 18 and use age-verification
procedures to ensure that children do not join. The UN Security Council should
refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court to allow
prosecution of war crimes, including the conscripting or enlisting of children
under 15 into armed forces or non-state armed groups or their active
participation in hostilities.
Governments providing aid to armed groups
in Syria should review these groups’ policies on child recruitment, and
should suspend all military sales and assistance, including technical training
and services, to all forces credibly implicated in the widespread or systematic
commission of serious abuses, including the use of child soldiers, until
they stop committing these crimes and take appropriate disciplinary action
against perpetrators. They should also restrict residents of their
countries from providing military support to these groups.
Finally, humanitarian agencies operating in
Syria or assisting refugees in neighboring countries should support efforts to
provide secondary education opportunities for children, and address the
particular needs and vulnerabilities of boys aged 13 to 18 in their child
protection programming.
