Child Recruitment by Tamil Tigers: Worry For Human Rights

By: Parminder Category: World Date: Dec 21, 2006 Views: 987 Comments: 1

Child soldiers are being used in more than thirty countries around the world.  Children forced to take part in atrocities were often given drugs to overcome their fear or reluctance to fight.  Denied a childhood and often subjected to horrific violence, some 300, 00 children are serving as soldiers in current armed conflicts.

The use of children as soldiers, torture, abduction, and other human rights continue in Sri Lanka.  More than sixty thousand people including many children have been killed since Tamil tiger insurgency began in 1983.  In its latest human right report the U.S state department says the Tamil Tiger have “used and recruited children sometimes forcibly for use in batter field support functions and in combat.”

During 2005, there were reportedly more than five-hundred cases of forcible child recruitment by the Tamil Tigers and more than one thousand three hundred children were being held by the insurgents.

The U.S is urging both the government of Sri Lanka and Tamil Tigers to end hostilities immediately and return to negotiations to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.