A Global Problem
In at least 15 countries affected by armed conflict, governments imprison children suspected of involvement with non-state armed groups or other national security offenses. Recent investigations have found that children are often detained based on little or no evidence, subjected to torture in order to force confessions, and held in horrific conditions for months or even years.
International law recognizes children involved in armed conflict primarily as victims of serious violations who require rehabilitation and social reintegration. Over the past 20 years, at least 130,000 child soldiers have been released or demobilized from armed forces or armed groups and benefited from rehabilitation assistance. Yet increasingly, governments are treating children affected by armed conflict – even those that may not have any history as combatants – as criminals and security threats.
According to the United Nations Secretary-General, at least 4,471 children were detained in the context of armed conflict in 2017, a fivefold increase from 2012. The number of children detained in 2018 dropped to 2,637, but remains worryingly high. Particularly in conflicts involving designated terrorist or violent extremist groups, governments have become more likely to detain children than to provide them with rehabilitation and reintegration.
If a child is implicated in a war crime or violent criminal offense, international law allows for detention as a last resort and for judicial proceedings in line with juvenile justice standards. However, in practice such cases are the exception rather than the rule.
Children in armed conflict are doubly victimized – first by the armed groups that attack their homes and schools, and recruit or abduct them, and then by government authorities who imprison them.
In northeast Nigeria, for example, since 2013 authorities have detained over 3,600 children, including 1,600 girls, for suspected involvement with Boko Haram. Some of the children have been as young as five years old. Many of these children were arrested after escaping Boko Haram attacks, and girls have been arrested after forcible abduction and forced marriage to Boko Haram fighters. The vast majority of these children have never been charged with a crime.
Children interviewed by Human Rights Watch in June 2019 described beatings in detention, overwhelming heat, and an overpowering stench from hundreds of detainees sharing a single open toilet. Many spoke of frequent hunger or thirst and said that deaths of detainees were common. In Iraq, Iraqi and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) authorities have detained thousands of children for alleged affiliation with the Islamic State (IS), used torture to coerce confessions, and have convicted hundreds of children of terrorism in hasty, unfair trials.
Children may be prosecuted for any association with IS, including working as a cook or driver, or taking part in a religious training course. Detained children interviewed in late 2018 described torture during interrogation with plastic pipes, electric cables, and rods. Some said they confessed to IS involvement simply to stop the torture, despite having little or nothing to do with IS. Since 2015 in Somalia, military and intelligence forces have detained hundreds of children for suspected membership in the armed group al-Shabaab. Officials have subjected children to coercive treatment and interrogations, denied them access to family members and legal counsel, and in some cases, beaten and tortured them to obtain confessions. Dozens of children have been tried in military courts for alleged membership in al-Shabaab. In one case, a 15-year-old boy was abducted by al-Shabaab and forced to fight, and then captured and sentenced to 10 years in prison for al-Shabaab membership. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli security forces regularly use unnecessary force to arrest or detain Palestinian children as young as nine, often in the middle of the night, and threaten and physically abuse them in custody. Of 101 testimonies collected by Military Court Watch during 2018, 69 percent of children who had been detained reported various forms of physical abuse by Israeli forces during arrest, transfer, or interrogation, including beatings with batons and rifles, kicks in the genitals, and being shot with rubber bullets. Israeli authorities have frequently interrogated Palestinian children in the West Bank without the presence of their parents or lawyers, and tried them in military courts that have a near 100 percent conviction rate.
In a 2013 report, UNICEF said that the “the ill-treatment of [Palestinian] children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process.” According to the UN, at least 15 countries detain children in the context of armed conflict, including Afghanistan, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, the Philippines, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria. The consequences of military detention for children can be profound, creating long-term stigma, physical and mental health issues, family separation, and displacement, and severely limiting children’s ability to reintegrate into society and support themselves.
Some children risk revenge attacks if they return home after their release from detention. The UN Secretary General has warned that detention of children can exacerbate community grievances, and has repeatedly urged states to prioritize alternatives to detention.