War deprive children in Myanmar of their childhood

The continuing armed conflict in Myanmar is robbing children of their childhood, writes Aung Zaw for Inter Press Service.

CHIANG MAI, Thailand: In their early teens, they wear army uniforms and carry war weapons. By all other measure they are children, but to them war games are for real.

Myanmar's history is full of stories of different kings at war with each other. The modern period since 1948, when the British ended their colonial rule, has been little different. Almost from the day the British lowered the Union Jack, Myanmar has become a virtual battlefield.

Many Myanmar people, including children, have suffered as a result of this ongoing civil war. Mothers have lost sons, villagers lands and students their future. Children have lost their childhood.

A report, No Childhood At All published recently by the Thailand-based NGO, Images Asia, details how children have become among the main victims of the decades-old civil war in Myanmar.

The research, says Images Asia spokeswoman Lyndal Barry, was conducted for the United Nations Graca Machel Study on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, including many who have been forced into combat.

There is no shortage of questions about child soldiers but there has been little in the way of comprehensive research on the issue. But one undeniable fact is that the Myanmar people armed forces (Tatmadaw) and its foes have widely recruited child soldiers.

"The use of children as soldiers in Myanmar results in serious human rights abuses. Children are killed, forcibly conscripted, unwillingly separated from their families, kidnapped, tortured during their service, forced to kill and torture, and due to the rampant corruption in the Tatmadaw, are underpaid, or are not paid at all," Images Asia said in its report.

The United Nations Children's Fund says: "Many children are orphaned, abandoned, trafficked, exploited in the labor force, institutionalized or jailed. Some are used in drug-running, while others are targets of ethnic discrimination. In the civil war, children have become victims or participants in armed conflicts."

Myanmar is the world's seventh poorest country. Though children make up only 15 percent of the population, they account for half the country's annual death rate. Infant mortality is estimated at 146 for 1,000 births, with 175,000 infants dying every year, according to a United Nations Development Program report.

Young boys are raised to revere military leaders of the past, and to look on military induction as a sign of manhood. In the popular media, the soldier is held up as the perfect role-model.

Particularly among ethnic groups, where many children grow up watching their fathers go to war as their families and villagers are terrorized by the state's Tatmadaw forces, devotion to the revolutionary cause is seen as the highest calling to which they can aspire.

Since 1988 the Tatmadaw's ranks have swollen with the recruitment of boys under 14 years of age. UNICEF officials found evidence that boys could be "officially conscripted" into the military at age 14. They are later sent to military training centers. Most recruits are orphans, street children, criminals or those who have fled the frontline villages.

"Anecdotal reports exist of such children being taken to places like Pegu, Prome, and Mandalay, cities at some distance from their homes, before they are forced into armed service," Images Asia said in its report.

The youth are also said to receive political training, taught to be loyal to the government and the army. They are eventually assigned to become soldiers.

UNICEF also identified at least one residential military camp run by the ruling junta, called the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), near Kengtung in Shan state. There, children aged seven and above, believed to be orphans, were being trained for future life with the military.

But conscription is not a monopoly of the military. Ethnic armed groups including Khun Sa's Mong Tai Army (MTA), the Karen National Union, Wa and Kokang armies, Mon, Karenni, and Arakanese armies conscript children for their armies.

The notorious 'Tiger Camp' in Khun Sa-controlled territory was used for training thousands of children as soldiers for the MTA. The former Communist Party of Myanmar was reported to use child soldiers for human wave attacks.

Aung Soe, a SLORC soldier who defected to the Karen forces, said he had joined the Tatmadaw when he was 12. He said: "They (SLORC) never check registration papers showing your date of birth. In Light Infantry Battalion 202 alone there were more than 200 child soldiers. I think there were more children than adults."

Recruitment by the Tatmadaw is systematic, though policies appear to differ over time and between various areas. While the SLORC claims that the Tatmadaw is a volunteer force and that the army does not accept recruits below 18 years of age, there is very strong evidence to suggest that children are widely and regularly conscripted into its forces.

On the battlefield at Kawmoora in 1995, one porter described the SLORC soldiers he saw as "about 16, even 14 years old". "I'm telling the truth. They were scolding us, their elders, and some had voices that hadn't even broken yet."

Another boy said he lied about his age because he wanted to become a soldier. "I had to be 18 years old, but I know people who were, 11, 12, 13, and they all claimed they were 18. Anyone can become a soldier."

Although some volunteer their services, some are forced to join the military. "I was forced," Ye Kyaw said.

"Five people had to go from each part of town every month. My only brother had already joined the army before 1988 because he had a fight with our mother. I was trained at No.6 Divisional Training Center at Oke Twin for four months. There were 250 recruits in our group - the youngest 15 or 16," Ye Kyaw added.

Says Images Asia: "Child soldiers have played various roles in the conflict: they have performed front-line/active combat duties, done cooking and other menial labor, stood sentry point duty, acted as bodyguards, served as porters carrying ammunition and supplies, acted as spies or informants."

They have also been used as "cannon fodder to draw the fire of their adversaries, and sometimes in human-wave attacks in which hundreds are usually killed", said the same group.

For child soldiers, fear is a major determining factor in their obedience and performance, Images Asia said. In extreme cases when child soldiers could no longer tolerate their own, or their friends' mistreatment by senior officers, they were driven to either suicide or murder.

One Myanmar people soldier said: "We fought because they (ethnic armies) are my enemy, and I am fighting for my survival, they are fighting for revolution." One defector, Aung Htay, said he had to carry German-made rifles while fighting with rebels. But when they witnessed or experienced real hardship, maltreatment and killings, child soldiers said they were shocked and horrified by what they saw.

And having no normal lives, child soldiers are often depressed and suffer from diseases like malaria which children are susceptible to. Most report experiencing nightmares, depression, anxiety, insomnia and aggressive or withdrawn behavior.

Ordinary soldiers receive about 600 kyat a month as salary -- which is US$ 96 at the official rate and $ 4 at the unofficial rate. Soldiers who lose an eye or leg are given some compensation and sent to Tatmadaw hospitals, but there is no lifetime treatment and only a limited pension.

Myanmar acceded to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991. It signed the Declaration and Plan of Action at the World Summit for Children. But Images Asia says the military government continues to use child soldiers more so now than ever before, as it continues to increase the number of men - and boys - under arms.