The United States on Tuesday said that the Assad regime, the ISIS extremist group and the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) continue to forcibly recruit children in combat operations.
In its annual report on human trafficking, the US State Department said that the Assad regime “maintained its forcible recruitment and use of child soldiers, subjecting children to extreme violence and retaliation by opposition forces.”
The Assad regime “did not protect and prevent children from recruitment and use by government and pro-regime militias, armed opposition forces, and designated terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS),” the report added.
The report went on to say that children in Iraq continue to be “recruited and used as soldiers by various armed groups, including ISIS, rendering these children vulnerable to abuse and arrest by security forces.”
The US State Department also said that children in Iraq “remain highly vulnerable to forcible recruitment and use by multiple armed groups operating in Iraq, including—but not limited to—ISIS, the PMF (Popular Mobilization Forces), tribal forces, the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), and Iran-backed militias” (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Agencies)
