The Daily IIJ

Myanmar military is using child soldiers, as Burma Patnership said. The pro democrazy organization published the reports in Post Nargis Analysis-The Other Side of the Story (PONJA) in Jakarta, and exposed the facts. Burma Patnership gathered their reports on field by collecting testimonies from former child soldier and observations.

“Child soldiers has been used for years and it hard to be detected. We are able to do it after a child soldier manage to escape,” said Khin Ohmar, Burma Patnership Coordinator. The Myanmar’s child soldiers were taken from their parents’s house in age of 10 to 11 years old. According to parents’s reports, UN predicted there are at least 60.000 children were used as child soldier in Myanmar, which is the biggest number in the world. On paper, those children were registered as 18 years old soldiers. Ponja reported after Nargis storm crushed the country last May, at least 100 orphanages were taken away by the military.

“Since they were taken, they have no contact with families at all,” said Khin Omar.”No bodies know where they went.”

Later known these children were sent to military camps to attend 3 months training. The boys will be trained to be soldiers, and the girls will sent to work in organizations related to the military. After the camp finished, those boys will be send to front line, mostly into ethnic conflict area in Karen, Myanmar. They worked as lugage carriers, servants for higher military officers or as a life mine sweepers.

“Although on paper they received salaries, they actually became slaves and never got their payments,” said Khin Ohmar.

But not all Nargis Storm child victims become soldiers right away. Some of them are sent to military orphanages, to be adopted by officers and become soldiers them self in the future. Burma Patnership with Asean Inter-parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) has sent the report to Asean Secretary in Jakarta but President AIPMC Kraisak Choonhavan said they haven’t received any reactions. Although 2 years ago AIPMC and Asean agreed that Myanmar’s issue can demolished that South Asia Alliance credibility. “We do hope Asean officers read this reports and do something on Burma,” said Kraisak.

Published in Jurnal Nasional, International page