25.03.2007
Let’s Mark Burma's Child Soldiers Day
Campaign News
As we all know, Burma's SPDC military regime has been using child soldiers, and now Burma has become one of the world-top countries with largest number of child soldiers.
In addition to the usual risk and hardships related to a soldier-hood, child soldiers have to suffer emotional and psychological trauma because of being coercively detached away from their parents_ many of the child soldiers are conscripted by force. And they are abused very badly by their senior colleagues in the army. And they are usually brain washed to regard all non-burman ethnics as enemies.
"Burma's army preys on children, using threats, intimidation and often violence to force young boys to become soldiers. To be a boy in Burma today means facing the constant risk of being picked up off the street, forced to commit atrocities against villagers, and never seeing your family again."….Jo Becker Advocacy Director of the Children's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.
“Thousands of children, possibly tens of thousands, remained in the Myanmar armed forces and forcible recruitment continued to be reported. Child soldiers, mostly aged between 12 and 18, were forced to take part in combat and subjected to harsh living conditions and beatings. Nearly all armed political groups recruited and used child soldiers and several thousand were estimated to remain in the ranks of such groups”…… www.child-soldiers.org
“Myanmar has the world's highest number of child soldiers, with children as young as seven years old working as human shields, sex slaves and fighters. The southeast Asian country, also known as Burma, has 50,000 child soldiers working for both government and opposition armies, according to a report released Tuesday by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. In Burma the situation is unique because the desire for more independence from the government goes along with armed ethnic groups struggling to identify themselves in various locations”….. Judit Arenas, spokesperson for the Coalition told CNN.
We should seriously discuss about this very serious problem of child soldiers in SPDC army. And how to help them; the practical ways and means to help them. E.g., to regard any child soldier running away from border posts into neighbouring countries as refugees, not as deserters. To provide a safe heaven for them. To rehabilitate and resettle them. To re-educate them. To pressure SPDC to stop using child soldiers.
To be able to increase international awareness of the sufferings of our Child Soldiers in Burma, we need to have a Child Soldiers’ Day. And as the SPDC army is the biggest user of Child Soldiers, let us make SPDC's Armed Forces Day March 27 as Burma's Child Soldiers Day, to highlight their plight and to highlight the need to help them urgently!
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