According to a recent interview on Radio Free Asia with Jo Becker, known child soldier expert at Human Rights Watch, Burma has shown little improvement in their use and recruitment of child soldiers. According to Becker, U.N. Security Council’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict has had difficulty locating and aiding child soldiers in [...]

…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 [...]

After capturing a LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) security post, Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence found some obituary posters. Included on the posters appear to be child soldiers that were killed in action from 17th February to 10th March of this year. From this article: Referring to recently captured obituary posters from a LTTE [...]

According to this article, child soldiers, acting as messengers, police trackers, etc have been seen entering the “Red Corridor” in India, and on videos. According to Malkangiri SP Gajbhiye, the child soldiers perform several tasks ranging from actual combat to the laying of mines and explosives, tracking combing operations and spying. They also serve as [...]

Yesterday, an article in the New York Times highlighted the new report on child soldiers by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers – in section A of the paper (page 18). A quote: The number of conflicts in which children are used as soldiers has dropped sharply in the past four years, [...]