Suffer the little children..
A UN report, detailing the treatment of children from March 2011 to November 2013, in the Syrian conflict has shown that there is wide spread abuse as a direct result of the Syrian conflict. Not just from the Assad Government troops, but also from the Rebel forces as well.
To date, it is estimated that
at least 10,000 children have been killed in the civil war in Syria. It does not end there. If that was not bad enough, the scale of the abuse faced by children is breathtakingly heartbreaking.
In 2011 and 2012, the report said, children as young as 11 were held in government detention centers with adults and, according to witnesses, subjected to torture to coerce relatives to surrender or confess.
“Ill treatment and acts tantamount to torture reportedly included beatings with metal cables, whips and wooden and metal batons; electric shocks, including to the genitals; the ripping out of fingernails and toenails; sexual violence, including rape or threats of rape; mock executions; cigarette burns; sleep deprivation; solitary confinement; and exposure to the torture of relatives,” the report stated. “Reports indicate that children were also suspended from walls or ceilings by their wrists or other limbs, were forced to put their head, neck and legs through a tire while being beaten, and were tied to a board and beaten.”
The report said it had documented reports of sexual violence against children in government detention, “perpetrated mostly by members of the Syrian intelligence services and the Syrian Armed Forces” against those who were suspected of being affiliated with the opposition.
The Rebel forces did not fare better in the report. With uncorroborated reports of rape of children (due to lack of access to some regions, the reports of rape allegedly committed by Opposition forces were unable to be verified) and the shooting of some teenage boys by the extremist factions of the Syrian Opposition forces, the report also details the recruitment of children into the war, from refugee camps in neighbouring countries, to fulfill military and support roles in the Opposition forces:
The report also chronicled abuse by opposition forces, particularly as the war intensified starting in 2013, including summary executions of children. It received two reports from Hasakah Province, in northeast Syria: a 16-year-old boy shot to death in April 2013 by the Nusra Front, an extremist faction aligned with Al Qaeda, and a 14-year-old boy killed by members of a Kurdish group. The Syrian government told United Nations investigators that at least 130 children had been killed by opposition forces in different parts of the country.
The report said the Free Syrian Army, the main opposition force, had recruited children in military and support roles. While there seemed to be no systematic policy of drawing children into combat, the report said, there were no age verification procedure. “Many boys stated that they felt it was their duty to join the opposition,” the report said, adding that at times children were drawn into fighting “by an elder male relative.”
A spokesman for the rebels’ Supreme Military Council, who goes by the name Omar Abu Leila to protect his family, said that the Free Syrian Army only permits combatants who are at least 18, but that other rebel groups might deploy younger teenagers. “I don’t believe the report because the number of fighters in the Free Syrian Army is large, so there is no need to use children,” he said.
There is no evidence that some of these children are being forced into combat by the Opposition forces and there is evidence to suggest many of these children are volunteering due to the circumstances of the war (death of family, family pressure to fight, sense of duty and most importantly, lack of education for these boys), the fact that they are being used at all or accepted into such roles is disturbing. In other words, the Opposition forces were not found to be going out of their way to grab or force children into these roles,
but they weren't turning them away either.
"The lack of education or job opportunities and peer pressure were identified as key factors leading to the recruitment of refugee children," Ban said in the report.
Within Syria, Ban's report said the United Nations "received consistent reports of recruitment and use of children by FSA-affiliated groups" but that it was not conducted as a policy or systematically.
"Interviews with children and their parents indicated that the loss of parents and relatives, political mobilization and peer pressure from families and communities, contributed to the involvement of children with FSA-affiliated groups," it said.
"Many boys stated that they felt it was their duty to join the opposition," the report said.
The United Nations did not receive reports of formal recruitment of children by government forces, but troops and pro-government militia reportedly intimidated and seized young males, some under 18, to join them at checkpoints and during raids in pro-government and contested areas.
At least 10,000 dead children and counting. Systemic industrial scale murder.. Torture and rape of children...
When will this clusterfuck of a war end? How has it been allowed to get to this point?
