This article by the Guardian UK is not the first story about child soldiers being recruited in Iraq by terror groups and/or militias. But the growing evidence that they are being coerced into serving as suicide bombers is alarming. A raid on a major al-Qaeda hideout north of Baghdad has uncovered evidence of a network [...]

August 12, 2008 • 8:25 am 0 The Iraq Human Rights Ministry recently conducted interviews with more than 1,000 juveniles being held in prisons in Iraq – 338 in prisons run by US forces, and 669 in Iraqi-run prisons. The ministry says that most of these children have been convicted of terror or criminal acts. [...]

…Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict for the United Nations, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy stated recently. After an April 2008 trip to Iraq, Ms. Coomaraswamy expressed her concern for the deteriorating situation for children there. In this press release: Many of them no longer go to school, many are recruited for violent [...]

I think this article from February 6, 2008 on Al Qaeda recruiting young boys, bears revisiting considering the NPR broadcast the other day (see April 15 post) on the increasing number of IDPs (internally displaced persons) in Iraq – nearly 3 million – many of which are children. The concern, of course, is that the [...]

April 15, 2008 • 11:27 pm 0 In the UK, the Conservative Party Human Rights Commision will hold a hearing on Child Soldiers April 23, 2008. Stay tuned for a report on the proceedings… Today on Morning Edition of NPR, there was an interesting report on the Sadr Militias support of IDPs (internally displaced persons) [...]