Burma's ruling military junta has vehemently denied using child soldiers in the Burmese Army, called the Tatmadaw, at a meeting in the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) Office on September 17. The denial came in the state run media the New Light of Myanmar and The Mirror (Kyaymon).
Burma's ruling military junta has vehemently denied using child soldiers in the Burmese Army, called the Tatmadaw, at a meeting in the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) Office on September 17. The denial came in the state run media the New Light of Myanmar and The Mirror (Kyaymon).
"The Tatmadaw has been recruiting new members in accordance with the law, rules and regulations," said the Chairman of the Committee for Prevention of Recruiting Child Soldiers into the Army, Secretary-1 of the SPDC, Lt-Gen Thein Sein.
The SPDC blamed opponents from inside and outside the country for accusing it of using child soldiers in the Tatmadaw. It noted at the meeting that it has been working in cooperation with the United Nations (UN) agencies to expose that the accusation is totally untrue and they will continue to inform the UN agencies about the true situation in Burma.
"The SPDC's intention is to tell the international community that they are not using child soldiers and they [SPDC] created the Committee for the Prevention of Recruiting Child Soldiers. It is also to project a good image that they respect human rights and humanitarian law," said Ryan Silverio, regional coordinator of the Southeast Asia Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (SEACSUCS).
According to Human Rights Watch's (HRW) Report 2007, The SPDC still actively recruits or forcibly recruits children into its armed forces.
David Mathieson, Burma consultant for HRW, said the SPDC's weak military structure contributes to its continued use of child soldiers.
"There are between 100 and 150 soldiers in one [Burmese] battalion. This is below strength; a normal battalion is between 600 and 800 soldiers, so, they use child soldiers to bolster their numbers," said Mathieson.
Burma's Tatmadaw has an estimated 400,000 soldiers and among them, 20 percent are under the age of 18, according to HRW.
In June, Ms Radhika Coomaraswamy, Under Secretary General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict visited Burma to establish the UN task force on children and armed conflict and to discuss modalities of the monitoring and reporting mechanism with the Burma's ruling junta.
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