Burma: Child soldier released

2010-03-16

BANGKOK – A 14-year-old boy who was conscripted into the Burmese military has been returned to his family with the help of a local NGO and members of a political opposition group, according to the boy's father.

Win Naung, son of Phone Kyaw, was conscripted by the military nearly four months ago and held at an Army base seven miles (11 kms) from his home in Tha Beik Kyin township in Burma's northern Sagaing division.

But the boy was returned to his parents Monday after members of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) intervened, Phone Kyaw said.

"When I traveled to the military base to get my son back, the military made me sign nearly 30 documents. They scrutinized my national identification card, as well as that of my son," he said.

"There were local authorities, members of a women's and children's welfare group, and an Army captain all present. A number of photographers were taking pictures. But I refused to be intimidated."

Phone Kyaw said that military authorities told him it was "unfair" that he requested his underage son be returned to him. He replied that he alone was entitled to complain.

Officials at the base provided Phone Kyaw with 35,000 kyat (U.S. $30) for his troubles, but then demanded that 5,000 kyat (U.S. $4) be provided to photographers who had attended and documented the meeting.

They told him Win Naung had been conscripted legally and there was no reason for him to be returned to his family. Additionally, the officials said, the boy wasn't being stationed at the base and they were unsure of his whereabouts.

Enlisting help

Phone Kyaw said that after the failed meeting with the base officials, he decided to contact the ILO and local chapter of the NLD to enlist their help in retrieving his boy.

After the two organizations became involved, the army finally admitted that Win Naung was stationed at the base and would be sent home.

Aye Thein, a member of the NLD in Tha Beik Kyin, explained how his group coordinated with the ILO to discover Win Naung's whereabouts and pressure local officials into returning him to his parents.

"We contacted Aye Myint, a well-known lawyer in Bagoe, and sent letters to the ILO in Rangoon – directly to the attention of resident coordinator Steve Marshall. Our success is likely the result of getting so many high-profile people involved," Aye Thein said.

"After the complaint reached the ILO, Capt. Myint Swe, from the Army base, went to see Phone Kyaw. He told him that since it had become known that Win Naung was being held at the base, the army would have to let him go."

Most child soldiers

Since the beginning of 2010, the ILO has assisted in reuniting seven child soldiers with their families.

In late January, the military in Burma's central Magwe division returned 14-year-old Kyaw Min Htun to his cancer-stricken mother after she took her plea for his release to the international media.

But human rights groups and the United Nations have repeatedly cited Burma as possibly having the largest number of child soldiers in the world.

Thousands are swept up in recruitment drives by the ruling junta, and many also serve in armed ethnic insurgencies.

Some are as young as 10, their enlistment papers routinely falsified to indicate their ages as 18 or older, according to Human Rights Watch.

Aye Myint, a Burma-based human rights activist and lawyer who handles child soldier cases, said 121 incidents of forced recruitment were recorded in 2009 alone.

The United Nations Secretary General has cited Burma six times since 2002 in reports to the Security Council as among the world's worst perpetrators of child recruitment.

Pressured to meet quotas

In its just-released 2009 report on human rights practices around the world, the U.S. State Department said the junta's army "continued to recruit and use child soldiers. The minimum age of enlistment in the army is 18 years, and the government's official policy is to avoid conscripting child soldiers; however, it did not deny their existence."

"Informal recruiting targeted vulnerable children. Some reports indicated the army recruited children as young as 11. Credible sources indicated the number of child soldiers may have risen to 12,000, although accurate statistics were difficult to obtain."

Ethnic militias meanwhile denied the existence of child soldiers in their ranks, although their existence was widely reported, the State Department said.

Earlier reports have described street children being lured into the army with promises of food and shelter. Others were reportedly detained by police and offered the choice of joining the army or going to jail, according to United Nations officials.

Original reporting by Nay Linn for RFA's Burmese service. Burmese service director: Nyein Shwe. Translated from the Burmese by Nyein Shwe. Executive producer: Susan Lavery. Written for the Web in English by Joshua Lipes. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Link to original story on RFA website