“Maybe We Live and Maybe We Die” a HRW Report on Recruitment and Use of Children by Armed Groups in Syria

NEW YORK- Children in Syria have been major victims of the conflict in the country as the armed terrorist groups fighting the Syrian government and seeking the destruction of the state have exploited Syrian children and recruited them in this conflict in an open violation of human rights and international laws.

The Human Rights Watch on Monday urged armed groups in Syria to stop enlisting teenagers in their ranks and warned their foreign backers that they could be implicated in “war crimes”.

The New York-based rights watchdog accused armed groups of using children as young as 15 to fight in battles in Syria. Some of these groups recruit teenagers “under the guise of offering education,” HRW said in the report published on Monday.

The 31-page report, titled “Maybe We Live and Maybe We Die” documents the experiences of 25 children recruited in Syria’s armed conflict. The Human Rights Watch interviewed children who fought with the so-called “Free Syrian Army”, the “Islamic Front coalition”, and the extremist groups ISIL and Jabaht al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate. It affirmed that using children in armed conflict violates international law.

According to AFP, radical terrorist groups in Syria, including the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) “have specifically recruited children through free schooling campaigns that include weapons training, and have given them dangerous tasks, including suicide bombing missions”.

The children interviewed by HRW said they took part in combat, worked as snipers, manned checkpoints, spied, cared for the wounded, or carried munitions or other supplies to the front line.

“Armed groups in Syria shouldn’t prey on vulnerable children by enlisting them in their forces,” HRW’s Priyanka Motaparthy said. “The horrors of Syria’s armed conflict are only made worse by throwing children into the front lines.”

The rights watchdog also urged countries supporting the armed terrorist groups in Syria to press for an end to child recruitment. “Governments supporting armed groups in Syria need to press these forces to end child recruitment and use of children in combat,” Motaparthy said. “Anyone providing funding for sending children to war could be complicit in war crimes.”

In March, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari made a statement at the Security Council session on Children at war times and under armed conflicts, stressed that the Syrian government was committed to international agreements and conventions regarding the protection of children’s rights, pointing out that children were being recruited in the fighting and exploited in committing crimes.  

Earlier media reports said that the armed terrorist groups had recruited children and established training camps in several areas in Syria to prepare child fighters in a blatant violation of international laws and children’s rights.

H. Mustafa