Committee on Prevention of Recruitment of Child Soldiers Holds 1/2022 Meeting

The committee meeting (1/2022) on prevention of recruitment of child soldiers was held in the meeting hall of the Ministry of Defence on 18 March. During the meeting, Union Minister for Defence General Mya Tun Oo, Chairman of Committee on the Prevention of Recruitment of Child Soldiers expressed the following points:

• The government and the Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting (CTFMR) signed the prevention of child soldier recruitment project on 27 June 2012.
• Cooperating with CTFMR, the Tatmadaw discharged 1,029 child soldiers, who were wrongly recruited and arrangements are being made to release wrongly recruited 28 child soldiers to reunite with their parents.
•  The officers and military service members, who made wrong recruitment of the underage children and unwilling persons to join the military service, were taken legal actions.
• For such cooperation between Tatmadaw and CTFMR, Tatmadaw was removed from the lists of the recruitment and use of child soldiers in the annual lists of UN Secretary-General for 2019 on 15 June 2020 and reached under the monitor for one year.
• During that period, the Tatmadaw strictly followed the law, rules and regulations in recruiting the new members. Despite such doings, Tatmadaw was put back on the list again one-sidedly before the issuance of the annual report of the UN Secretary-General on 21 June 2021.
• But, Tatmadaw organized the committee meeting as usual and reported the outcomes of the meeting to CTFMR via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• The Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services also gave instructions to conduct the measures systematically and report to CTFMR.
• The activities of Tatmadaw were also presented to Ms. Virginia Gamba, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tatmadaw will carry out the procedures according to its commitments.

It is reported that the committee members of Prevention of Recruitment of Child Soldiers and relevant officials attended the meeting.

• The government and the Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting (CTFMR) signed the prevention of child soldier recruitment project on 27 June 2012.
• Cooperating with CTFMR, the Tatmadaw discharged 1,029 child soldiers, who were wrongly recruited and arrangements are being made to release wrongly recruited 28 child soldiers to reunite with their parents.
• During that period, the Tatmadaw strictly followed the law, rules and regulations in recruiting the new members. Despite such doings, Tatmadaw was put back on the list again one-sidedly before the issuance of the annual report of the UN Secretary-General on 21 June 2021.
• The activities of Tatmadaw were also presented to Ms. Virginia Gamba, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tatmadaw will carry out the procedures according to its commitments.