Prevention of Recruiting Child Soldiers: MOD organizes the Committee Meeting (1/2025)

The Committee on Prevention of Recruitment of Child Soldiers held its meeting at the Ministry of Defence on Thursday.

The meeting was attended by Chairman of the Committee, member of the State Administration Council, Deputy Prime Minister and Union Minister for Defence General Maung Maung Aye, committee members and concerned officials. First, the Union Minister stated that children should not be recruited as soldiers and the suspicious youngsters who are underage should not be allowed to serve in Tatmadaw.

He also highlighted that before the cooperation with the Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting- CTFMR, 597 child soldiers who were wrongly recruited between the years 2004 to 2012 have been transferred back to their parents and guardians.

The Plan of Action on prevention of the recruitment of child soldiers was signed between the State Government and CTFMR in 2012 and starting from 2012 till now, 1,057 child soldiers who were wrongly recruited have been transferred back to their parents and guardians by allowing them to resign from Tatmadaw.

He added that as Tatmadaw, soldiers are being recruited in line with the laws, bylaws and rules and regulations signed between the Committee and CTFMR and knowledge sharing activities are also being carried out in collaboration with the concerned ministries.

The People’s Military Service Law, enacted in 2010 is now taking into effect starting from 10th February 2024 and the People’s Military Service bylaws were issued on 23rd January 2025.

According to those bylaws, the respective Summoning Bodies for People’s Military Servants are systematically monitoring not to recruit any minors of under 18 years old. Afterwards, the attendees made clarifications regarding the implementations being made to prevent the recruitment of child soldiers and the Union Minister supplemented on the discussions.