“Unabated LTTE child conscription”- considerable concern for UNICEF &; Academics

LTTE conscription, despite repeated UNICEF and other public pleas and LTTE assurances, continues unabated in full swing in the north and east of Sri Lanka according to UNICEF spokesperson Geoffrey Keele who was recently quoted in the Press.

After the tsunami catastrophe in December last year, at least forty children have been conscripted to the LTTE as child soldiers, even by going to the extent of abducting a few of them from tsunami welfare centers in the north and east, says the UNICEF.

“We have forty cases of confirmed child recruitment since the tsunamis and we had hoped that with such a disaster, the LTTE would have ended this practice. But unfortunately no,” the spokesperson was quoted saying. UNICEF also said the LTTE took three children from a relief centre, while others were recruited from areas of the north east held by the LTTE.

UNICEF has further noted that the youngest child thus conscripted was thirteen years of age. The LTTE recruited 22 boys and 18 girls in total, most of them between the ages of fifteen and seventeen. UNICEF again said they hope the LTTE will stop taking children into their organization.

Several instances where troops had to intervene to secure the release of children from north and east of the country were also brought to the notice of the authorities and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, particularly after tsunami-affected children were housed elsewhere outside their homes.

On 10 January 2005, a sixteen-year old girl sheltered in a Welfare Centre at St Xavier College in Batticaloa, meant for tsunami-affected victims, was abducted and taken away by an LTTE member, the Police were told by her parents. Another fourteen-year old boy from Kalawanchikudy was abducted and forcibly recruited to LTTE, say parents in a Police complaint made on 27 January 2005, to cite a few examples.

Professor Harenda De Silva, Chairman National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) in a recent report submitted to a forum at BMICH had this to say. Here follows extracts; (Quote) “In their efforts to explore effects of LTTE child conscription on the children involved, several research projects have been carried out to identify problems of conscription. Interviews with child soldiers suggest that LTTE made those children to join them for the virtue of being a freedom fighter and martyr, for fear of being abducted by the enemy (soldiers), for economic reasons or in order to revenge a family member who had been slain by an enemy or their own group”.

“Conscription “corrupts” a child by making him engage in violent destructive, and anti-social behaviour, such as killing and destruction of property, thus making him unfit for normal social experience. Conscription “terrorizes” a child with verbal assaults, bullying, blackmail and death threats, all in the name of 'discipline'. Conscription isolates a child from the normal social experience, and ignores his emotional and developmental needs by removing him from normal family life and schooling. Any of these circumstances would adversely affect the child's right to unhindered growth and identity as a child.”

“Moreover, conscription may lead children to commit suicide, an act of self-destruction that cannot be fully comprehended. Traditionally, all conscripts, irrespective of age wear Cyanide capsules at all times, which they are trained to bite on during “suicide missions” or if they are captured (BBC – inside story' 1991). The prominent place given to martyrs and the oath taken by the child soldier, in which he vows to sacrifice his life are likely contributing factors to this phenomenon. Indoctrinating and convincing a child to commit suicide for any cause should constitute both emotional abuse and intentional poisoning. These findings lead us to propose a new definition of child abuse. When an adult persuades a child to commit suicide – an act the child cannot comprehend – for personal, social, economic, or political reasons that the child cannot understand, that persuasion constitutes a form of child abuse that may be called “suicide by proxy”

“Moreover, we propose that conscription itself – the involvement of dependent, developmentally immature children and adolescents in an armed conflict that they do not truly comprehend, to which they are unable to give consent, and which adversely affects the child's right to unhindered growth and identity as a child – should also be viewed as a form of child abuse. Defining conscription as a form of child abuse does not require a great leap of imagination, as many of the traditional elements of child abuse are already contained within it. Severe physical punishment in the name of discipline clearly constitutes physical abuse. Getting a child to perform guard duty, involving the child in military operations, making the child manufacture bombs and set sea mines increases the likelihood that the child will suffer serious injury of death, and subjects the child to intense psychological and emotional pressure. The exploitation of child labor is yet another form of abuse”.

“There is a need for the public in affected areas and societies to recognize the long term implications that childhood conscription will have on their society. There should not be any political bias when such a call for awareness is made. The common objective should be to protect children whatever the race, religion or political group from the physical and emotional trauma including death, and initiate a program to rehabilitate these children who are deeply damaged emotionally.”