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II. Recommendations
- Immediately end all recruitment of children under the age of 18, and demobilize children under the age of 18 from the armed forces.
- Offer the option of an honorable discharge to any soldier now over the age of 18 but who was recruited as a child.
- Ensure that all recruits to the military are at least 18 years of age. To this end, enforce the requirement (already stated in recruitment brochures) that all recruits to the military must provide documentary proof that they are 18 years of age or over, and enact a system for monitoring that such documents have been received and verified.
- Implement comprehensive birth registration and ensure that all children have proof of age.
- Develop and impose effective and appropriate sanctions against individuals found to be recruiting children under 18 into the armed forces, and publicize information about these sanctions within the military and publicly. Sanctions including potential conviction and imprisonment must apply to anyone who recruits children for the military, including military recruiters, police, members of groups such as the fire brigades, and civilians in general.
- Eliminate all incentives, including monetary compensation, promotions, or military discharge for soldiers who recruit children.
- Seek international cooperation with relevant agencies in order to verify recruitment practices. As part of this, allow monitoring of recruitment and training centers by independent outside bodies.
- Establish a system for recruits, their families, or concerned parties to inquire whether a particular child has been recruited, and if so to petition for that child’s release, without fear of retaliation against the child or the petitioner. This could be set up in conjunction with international organizations or as an independent office, monitored by outside organizations. Publicize this system nationwide.
- Ensure that children and soldiers recruited as children who run away from the armed forces are not treated as deserters or subject to punishment. Immediately release all children or those recruited as children who are detained or imprisoned for desertion.
- Create a mechanism to assist former child soldiers, including children from the Ye Nyunt, to reunite with their families without fear of state punishment or retaliation.
- Cooperate with international nongovernmental organizations, UNICEF, and UNHCR to reunite former child soldiers with their families, and facilitate their rehabilitation and social reintegration, including appropriate educational and vocational opportunities.
- Sign and ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflicts, and consistent with existing national law, deposit a binding declaration establishing a minimum age of voluntary recruitment of at least 18.
- Ratify the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (International Labour Organization Convention No. 182), which defines the forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict as one of the worst forms of child labor.
- Ratify the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, which includes the recruitment or use of children under the age of 15 in its definition of war crimes.
- Conduct public education campaigns through the media and elsewhere to inform children and parents of the rights of children, including their right not to be recruited into armed forces or groups, in accordance with the Plan of Action of the Committee for Prevention of Military Recruitment of Underage Children.
- Increase information sharing with international organizations regarding the work of the Committee for Prevention of Military Recruitment of Underage Children, and work with UNICEF to amend the Committee’s Plan of Action to reflect international standards, UN Security Council resolutions 1539 and 1612, and the Paris Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups.
- In cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross, UNICEF, and nongovernmental organizations, conduct trainings in international humanitarian law and the rights of children for all soldiers, including officers and recruiters.
- Remove restrictions on humanitarian access by international organizations, and cooperate with these organizations in ending all recruitment and use of child soldiers.
- Allow Burmese civil society organizations to report and act on cases of child recruitment without threat of reprisals.
- Ensure that all children have access to free and compulsory quality primary education, and work towards the progressive introduction of free secondary education. Waive school fees and other associated costs of education, including costs for books and uniforms, or develop fee assistance programs for children whose families are unable to afford them.
- Ensure that any educational programs for children run by or in conjunction with the armed forces meet internationally accepted standards of education. Ensure that participation in such programs is voluntary, with the informed consent of the child’s parents or guardian, and that students are not members of the armed forces or used for any military activities.
- Ensure that all children enrolled in educational programs run by the armed forces have regular contact, including visits, with their families.
- Ensure that orphans and abandoned children have access to mainstream (non-military) schools, and receive adequate care.
- Ensure that educational opportunities offered to orphans, displaced, or other children are not conditioned on military service either during or after completion.
- Where the government has relations with non-state armed groups (such as “ceasefire groups”), press these groups to comply with international standards relating to the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, and provide or refer them to outside technical support when necessary to help them do so.
As short-term interim measures until all children have been demobilized from the military:
- Ensure that children in the armed forces receive regular leave and are allowed to communicate regularly with their families.
- Immediately end all physical and psychological abuse of child soldiers.
To All Non-state Armed Groups
- Immediately end all recruitment of children under the age of 18 and demobilize children under age 18 from armed groups.
- Offer the option of an honorable discharge to any soldier now over the age of 18 but who was recruited as a child.
- Formalize a commitment to end all child recruitment, demobilize children in the armed forces, and allow outside monitoring, for example, by signing a Deed of Commitment like those already signed by the Karenni Army and Karen National Liberation Army and reproduced in this report.
- Develop and enforce clear policies, if they do not already exist, to prohibit the recruitment of children under the age of 18. Ensure that such policies are widely communicated to members of the armed forces and to civilians within the group’s area of influence.
- Develop reliable systems to verify the age of individuals recruited into the armed group, and ensure that all such recruits are at least 18 years old.
- Develop and impose systematic sanctions against individuals found to be recruiting children under 18.
- Ensure that children under age 18 who desert SPDC forces or are captured are not recruited as soldiers into opposition forces.
- Seek international cooperation with relevant agencies in order to independently verify recruitment practices.
- Conduct public education campaigns to inform children and parents within the group’s area of influence of the rights of children, including their right not to be recruited into armed forces or groups.
- In cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross, UNICEF, and nongovernmental organizations, conduct trainings in international humanitarian law and the rights of children for all soldiers, including officers and recruiters.
- Wherever possible, establish educational programs and vocational training, and encourage children and their families to utilize such opportunities.
- Ensure that educational opportunities offered to orphans, displaced, or other children are not conditioned on military service either during or after completion.
To the Governments of Thailand, Laos, Bangladesh, India, and China
- Notify UNHCR and relevant nongovernmental organizations when children who have deserted SPDC forces or individuals who may have been child soldiers are taken into custody, to allow access and a determination of their status.
- Ensure that such children and individuals receive special protection and that they are not refouled. To this end, rescind and repudiate any refoulement agreement for former child soldiers.
- Rescind the agreement of the Joint Border Cooperation Committee which specifies that deserters from SPDC forces found on Thai soil will be handed over to Burmese authorities.
- Allow UNHCR, UNICEF, the ICRC, and nongovernmental organizations to establish protection and support mechanisms for former child soldiers both in and outside of existing refugee camps.
- Allow UNHCR, UNICEF, the ICRC, and nongovernmental organizations to conduct workshops and other initiatives on child rights to prevent recruitment of children into armed groups from refugee camps or other locations in Thailand.
- In refugee status determinations, take into account the special circumstances of children recruited before the age of 18 (even in cases where the applicant is now over the age of 18), including the possibility of extrajudicial execution if they are returned to Burma.
- Fully apply the “UNHCR Guidelines on Policies and Procedures in dealing with Unaccompanied Children Seeking Asylum” and the “UNHCR Guidelines on Protection and Care of Refugee Children,” especially those sections relating to procedures and criteria for refugee status determination for unaccompanied minors.
- Amend the “Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status” to provide guidance on considering the claims of unaccompanied children, and in particular former child soldiers, that is consistent with other UNHCR policies and guidelines and that fully takes into account the fact that the recruitment of children under the age of 18 is internationally considered to be a human rights violation.
- Investigate cases of deserters, including child deserters, being detained for possible deportation by authorities in Thailand and in Burma ’s other neighboring countries.
- Provide technical support and material assistance for initiatives aimed at preventing child recruitment and reintegrating former child soldiers in refugee camps and other locations in Burma’s neighboring countries.
- Provide technical and material assistance to civil society and non-state armed groups charged with the care and protection of child deserters from any armed force who reach a neighboring country.
- Continue to advocate with the SPDC for an immediate end to all recruitment of child soldiers and demobilization of those already in the armed forces.
- Work with the SPDC to establish mechanisms to demobilize children from the armed forces, and establish programs to facilitate the rehabilitation and social reintegration of former child soldiers, including appropriate educational and vocational opportunities.
- Help to reunite former child soldiers with their families.
- Reestablish contact with non-state armed groups, including those still in armed conflict with the Tatmadaw, and resume discussions and initiatives with these groups to address the issue of child soldiers.
- Provide technical support and material assistance for initiatives aimed at preventing child recruitment and reintegrating former child soldiers in non-state armed groups as well as the Tatmadaw; this should include support for projects such as “accelerated schools” in refugee camps and related projects in refugee camps, areas controlled by non-state groups, and areas controlled by the state.
- Provide technical and material assistance to civil society and non-state armed groups charged with the care and protection of child deserters from any armed force. Assistance should not be biased in favor of actors linked to or at peace with the state, as this is a violation of humanitarian neutrality; therefore assistance for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs offered to the SPDC should also be offered in appropriate proportion to non-state groups who are expected to abide by the same standards.
- In line with the above, offer technical assistance to improve birth registration in areas controlled by non-state groups similar to that which is being offered to the SPDC in areas that it controls.
- Continue direct contact with the SPDC and non-state groups and actively monitor whether their commitments are implemented effectively.
- Engage with civil society actors inside and outside Burma, including those outside the UN system, who can help monitor the situation and who can provide advice on ways forward.
- Immediately establish contact with the non-state armed groups on the secretary-general’s list of groups using child soldiers, both formally and informally, regarding their compliance with international standards.
- Remove the Karenni Army from the list of armed groups using child soldiers to be included in the secretary-general’s next report to the Security Council on children and armed conflict, and consider adding groups for which strong evidence exists that they are significant abusers of child soldiers, including the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and the Karenni Nationalities People’s Liberation Front (KNPLF).
- In accordance with Security Council resolution 1379 on children and armed conflict (November 20, 2001), paragraph 9, use all legal, political, diplomatic, financial, and material measures to ensure respect for international norms for the protection of children by parties to armed conflict. In particular, states should unequivocally condemn the recruitment and use of children as soldiers by the SPDC and other armed groups, and withhold any financial, political, or military support to these forces or groups until they end all child recruitment and release all children in their ranks.
- Use diplomatic and other appropriate means to press the governments of Burma’s neighboring countries to protect and not refoule escaped and prospective child soldiers, and to allow civil society initiatives to assist and protect these children.
- In accordance with Security Council resolutions 1539 (paragraph 5) and 1612 (paragraph 9) on children and armed conflict, adopt targeted measures to address the failure of the SPDC to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Consider measures recommended by the secretary-general, including the imposition of travel restrictions on leaders, a ban on the supply of small arms, a ban on military assistance, and restriction on the flow of financial resources.
- From the Rangoon office, continue accepting and pursuing cases of the reported recruitment of child soldiers through the ILO mechanism for reports of forced labor. Where the government refuses to act on a case despite documentary evidence provided by the ILO, press further for action on these cases and raise them with the higher levels of the ILO itself.
- Continue to research and report on the recruitment and use of child soldiers by the Burma army and other armed groups, and include relevant findings on this subject whenever presenting information to the General Assembly or the Human Rights Council.
October 2007
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