Quick Summary Child soldiers were recruited during the Sri Lankan civil war that lasted from 1983 until 2009.  Rebel group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which fought for a separate Tamil state named Tamil Eelam in the northern and eastern regions of Sri Lankan, recruited child soldiers, as did the paramilitary group Tamil Makkal [...]

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and UNICEF last Thursday created a new initiative called ‘Bring Back the Child’, designed to eliminate the recruitment and use of child soldiers in that country. The national program is designed to prevent child recruitment and also “promote the release of all recruited children” in Sri Lanka. The multimedia initiative [...]

Chief Minister Chandrakanthan of Sri Lanka has pledged that the “child soldier issue” relating to the children being held by the Thamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikai (TMVP) Party will be “concluded in the next three months.” According to the minister, the TMVP party has already handed over the children to their parents and relatives. However, UNICEF [...]

Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, said in a press release on January 21, 2009 that the LTTE (Tamil Tigers from Sri Lanka) needs to immediately release children held in its ranks, “stress(ing) that both authorities and humanitarian partners should prepare to separate these children and reintegrate them back [...]

Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), a Sri Lanka militia (and breakaway faction of the Tamil Tiger rebels) backed by the government, has agreed Thursday to release 60 child soldiers it currently has fighting in its ranks. Human Rights Watch has claimed that from June 2006 to December 2006 they forcefully recruited several hundred children. According [...]

…but the government of Sri Lanka has denied their appeal. On October, 10, Sri Lanka submitted an application to the European Union “to extend the generalized system of preferences plus (GSP+) concessions, and had submitted information to show that the country was in compliance with European rules.” In turn, the EU requested that Sri Lanka [...]

…in releasing, treating, rehabilitating former child soldiers in their country. United Nations Under-Secretary for Children in Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy met with Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama late last week. She noted that… …progressive developments have taken place in Sri Lanka in relation to children, including the release of child soldiers, re-integration of children back to [...]

…and are currently engaged in a battle of words. In late July, Sri Lankan rapper DeLon released a video attacking Sri Lankan singer M.I.A., accusing her of supporting the Tamil Tigers. She denies the claim. Check out his his video (it has disturbing images) on his blog, scroll down about halfway, called “M.I.A Paper Planes [...]

Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs with the U.S. State Department, talked about child soldiers in Sri Lanka over the weekend. Paramilitaries should be demobilized, he said, and the use of child soldiers must be stopped immediately. From the U.S. State Department website: Where you have the extension of [...]

A memoir – called autofiction by Sri Lankan Tamil author Shobasakthi – about a young man who served as a child soldier for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) recently came with in an English version. From this article: So, it was with great fear that, seven years ago, Sri Lankan Tamil writer Shobasakthi [...]