Prevention of child soldiers: SAC member Defense UM addressed the meeting

Chairman of Committee for the Prevention of Recruitment of Child Soldiers, Member of the State Administration Council, Deputy Prime minister Union Minister for Defense Admiral Tin Aung San presided over the committee meeting (2/2022) in the afternoon on 19th December.

In his opening remark at the meeting, the Union Minister for Defense said that the committee for the Prevention of Recruitment of Child Soldiers was formed on 5th January in 2004 to prevent the under aged children from serving the military duties, the committee meeting is held regularly once in every sisth month, the main responsibility of the committee is to prevent the recruitment and using of under aged children, not to accept the suspicious young people who enroll to serve the military duty and retransfter the soldiers who detected that he is not full age to their parents and guardians.

In 2006, in the report of the UN Secretary General, as the Tatmadaw (Army) was included in the priority list, the Plan of Action to prevent the under aged children from serving military duty was signed between the government of Myanmar and the country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting (CTFMR) on 27th June, 2012 to remove from the list.

According to that Plan of Action, a total of 1057 under aged soldiers so far were permitted to quit from Tatmadaw and have been retransferred to their parents, the young men who enlist to serve military duty were scrutinized by bone scan X-Ray and those who are suspicious to be under aged were not accepted and sent back to their addresses, the suspicious list of soldiers sent by CTFMR are being scrutinized and if they are under aged, they will be permitted to quit etc.

Next, the committee members and representatives discussed and gave suggestions on the work processes to prevent the under aged children from serving military duty, implementations as per the sector and the work plans to be implemented and the committee Chairman Union Minister supplemented necessary matters.