According to the rights group, “recent data from the United Nations showed a disturbingly high increase in child recruitment by the YPG last year,” NRT reported.
“The YPG, despite pledges to stop using child soldiers, is still recruiting children for military training in territory it controls,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, acting emergencies director at Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“It’s especially horrendous that the group is recruiting children from the vulnerable families in displacement camps without their parents’ knowledge or even telling them where their children are,” she added.
In the course of investigating the claims published in its report, HRW interviewed eight families in northeast Syria, all of whom said that their children enlisted voluntarily, mostly for monetary reasons.
Many families said that the YPG had not told them where their children were or whether they were in combat roles or not.
HRW cited an annual report prepared by the United Nations that found that “224 cases of child recruitment by the YPG and its women’s unit [YPJ] in 2017, an almost fivefold increase from the previous year.”
“Seventy-two of the children, nearly one-third, were girls. In at least three cases, the group abducted children to enlist them,” it added.
In response to a letter sent by HRW, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party-led Autonomous Administration said that families were informed if children enlist and that the group does not require them to have parental consent to do so.
The Administration stressed in its response, however, that any enlistee under 18 were not placed in combat roles, without providing evidence.
“Even if children are fleeing domestic violence or poverty, the YPG is not protecting them by recruiting them into their forces,” Motaparthy said.
“If they are serious about helping these children, they should live up to their pledge and provide alternatives to ensure that the children don’t lose their future or their lives.”
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