Syrian Kurdish Revolutionary Youth continues to recruit minors in northeast Syria: Syrian watchdog
“The AANES must respect its own Charter of Social Contract as well as its decisions that set the age of military service (self-defense duty) at 18 years.”
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Revolutionary Youth Movement (RY), or Tevgera Ciwanên Şoreşger in Kurdish, continues to recruit minors in Syria’s northeastern areas, sometimes through kidnapping, the Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ) said in a report on Friday.
Read More: 23 civil society organizations demand an end to child recruitment in northeast Syria
According to an earlier report of the STJ, the RY was established in 2011 and is “administratively affiliated with the Democratic Union Party (PYD)."
Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ) has been able to document at least 32 child recruitment cases in the first half of 2023. “It is verified that the RY was responsible for most of these cases, while the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) was to blame for one,” the organization said.
“The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), in control of the areas where the RY is active, has not complied with its public commitments to restrict the RY activities and close its offices and headquarters,” the STJ said.
“This was proved by the UN Secretary-General’s report on Children and Armed Conflict of late June 2023, which cited the involvement of the RY.”
The STJ said that despite pledges by the AANES pledged to redress the RY violations and hold perpetrators accountable, “these promises were unfortunately not serious and have not yet been fulfilled. On the contrary, the AANES offices refused to register any of the complaints filed by families of recruited children, especially those against the RY.”
Thirteen of the documented recruitment cases were of minor girls and the rest of male children, carried out as such; 10 cases in Qamishlo, five cases in Kobani, four cases in Manbij, five cases in Raqqa, three cases in al-Hasakah, and five cases in al-Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, Aleppo.
The STJ said that the AANES local constitution also bans child recruitment for use in hostilities, setting “the minimum age of recruitment for military service (self-defense duty) at 18 years.”
The UN Secretary-General’s report in June 2023, covering the period from Jan. to Dec. 2022, documented the recruitment and use of a total of 1,696 children (1,593 boys, 103 girls). These children were verified as recruited and used by different armed groups, including Syrian regime forces, the Syrian democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian opposition.
Specifically, the SDF recruited 637 minors, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) recruited 633 minors, and the Turkish backed Syrian National Army (SNA) recruited 611 minors.
“In light of the above, STJ urges all military actors involved in the use and recruitment of children in hostilities to stop these egregious violations and comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL),” the STJ said.
“In the same vein, we would like to recommend the AANES and the SDF, in particular to, demonstrate transparency and full commitment to the agreements on the prevention of child recruitment and use in armed conflicts.”
These agreements include those signed by the SDF with Geneva Call in July 2014, and with the UN in late June 2019.
“That must be accompanied by the reactivation of the action plan signed with the UN and the work towards its full implementation, as well as the reactivation of child protection offices.”
The STJ also called to “dissolve the groups and organizations recruiting children and to hold all parties – individuals and entities – involved in such acts accountable.”
“The AANES must respect its own Charter of Social Contract as well as its decisions that set the age of military service (self-defense duty) at 18 years,” the STJ added.