‘Never touched a gun’: Colombia fighters step up child soldier recruitment

The past clip Marta saw her 14-year-old lad was 3 months agone – helium was wearing rebel service fatigues and holding a firearm arsenic helium marched down the thoroughfare with the different kid soldiers.

She ran to the commanding serviceman and begged him to merchandise her boy, who had been abducted 9 months earlier successful the mediate of the nighttime from their location successful eastbound Colombia astatine property 13. The officer, portion of a dissident radical of the now-demobilised Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, oregon FARC, waved her away, threatening to sprout her if she didn’t leave.

“All I bash is commune and outcry and outcry and outcry and inquire God to get my lad retired of there,” said Marta, who asked to stay anonymous successful bid to stock her family’s acquisition safely.

The 40-year-old parent is not alone. Hundreds of mothers crossed Colombia person mislaid children to akin equipped groups, either done abduction oregon coercion.

In its yearly study for 2024, the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that Colombia faces its worst humanitarian outlook since the 2016 bid woody with the FARC rebel group. It drew peculiar attraction to surging kid recruitment by equipped groups, uncovering that 58 percent of those surviving successful struggle zones cited it arsenic the apical hazard successful their communities.

As Colombia’s long-running and analyzable conflicts proceed to escalate, with aggregate ceasefires and dialogues betwixt the authorities and equipped groups collapsing this year, transgression organisations progressively trust connected underage soldiers to bolster their ranks.

And determination is small being done to halt them.

Marta said she is excessively acrophobic to study her son’s abduction to the authorities aft the equipped radical made a wide menace erstwhile they took him: if she tells the police, they volition execute her lad and past travel for the remainder of the family.

“I person to fto him be. I archer myself helium is successful God’s hands, truthful arsenic not to enactment my different children astatine hazard … I person to permission everything successful God’s hands,” Marta said. “I don’t sleep, I don’t eat. Sometimes I person nary volition to bash anything, but I person 3 smaller children with me. And they request me, they request me.”

Gloria, a 52-year-old parent from eastbound Colombia who besides asked to stay anonymous, shared with Al Jazeera a akin communicative to Marta’s. In June, her 16-year-old lad was taken successful the mediate of the nighttime and forced to articulation different equipped group.

“I’m desperate, I don’t cognize what to do,” she said.

Gloria recovered retired astir her son’s abduction aft receiving a telephone from a distressed household member. They told her rebel fighters had forcibly entered the location wherever her lad was staying and taken him away.

“They recruited him to fight, and the lad had ne'er adjacent touched a gun,” she said. “He doesn’t cognize what he’s doing, nothing. At home, we ne'er had immoderate benignant of guns.”

Her household fled their agrarian hamlet successful eastbound Colombia earlier this twelvemonth amid aggravated warring betwixt the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissidents of the now-demobilised FARC.

But aft arriving astatine a exile structure successful the nearest city, they struggled to marque ends meet.

Her lad tried unsuccessfully to look for enactment successful Bogota and, incapable to articulation his parent astatine the structure owed to space, helium returned to their household home.

“He had to spell backmost [to our hometown], and determination they took him by force,” Gloria said.

Unlike with Marta, Gloria’s lad was returned location successful precocious June pursuing aggravated dialog efforts by section assemblage members and the ICRC.

From 2021 to 2024, officially documented kid recruitments jumped by 1,000 percent, expanding from 37 to 409 – but the existent fig is apt overmuch higher, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).

“We’re seeing a procreation of children mislaid into these networks of criminality for whom they carnivore small importance,” Elizabeth Dickinson, elder Colombia expert astatine ICG, told Al Jazeera.

She authored a caller study detailing the scourge of kid recruitment successful Colombia. It recovered that minors are often fixed the astir basal grooming earlier being sent to the beforehand lines, utilized arsenic cannon fodder to shield higher ranks.

“The casualty rates of kids successful combat implicit the past twelvemonth person been highly high,” said Dickinson.

It is hard to estimation however galore kid soldiers are killed annually since monitoring groups bash not separate betwixt civilian and worker deaths erstwhile it comes to children.

However, according to the 2024 UN Secretary-General’s Annual Report connected Children and Armed Conflict, astatine slightest 14 of the 262 children (176 boys and 86 girls) recruited successful 2023 were killed, though rights workers said this fig is overmuch higher.

“The bulk of those children stay associated (136), 112 were released oregon escaped, and 14 were killed. Some 38 children were utilized successful combat roles,” according to the report, which noted that 1 kid was recruited connected 2 abstracted occasions by antithetic equipped groups.

The study said 186 children were recruited by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) dissident groups, 41 by the National Liberation Army (ELN), and 22 by the Gulf Clan (also known arsenic Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia).

“According to the Colombian Family Welfare Institute, 213 children formerly associated with equipped groups entered its extortion programme,” it said.

As a result, families who suffer children to recruitment endure unbearable pain, fearing that their kid whitethorn beryllium dormant oregon injured.

By unit oregon coercion

While cases of forced recruitment are acold excessively common, successful astir cases, minors “voluntarily” enlist to combat aft being lured successful with mendacious promises, according to ICG’s Dickinson.

“We’re talking astir equipped and transgression groups winding a fantastical communicative to these children that it sounds truthful overmuch amended than their mean life, that they permission of their ain volition,” said Dickinson.

Groups usage TikTok, WhatsApp and Facebook to merchantability a glamourised representation of beingness successful arms, according to Dickinson. Boys are targeted with videos showing flashy motorbikes, guns and money. The equipped groups people young girls by luring them with promises of romance, empowerment, acquisition and successful immoderate cases, adjacent cosmetic surgery.

But children look a precise antithetic world aft enlisting and are utilized by senior-ranking members to bash their soiled work. Seen arsenic much pliable, minors are fixed tasks similar dismembering bodies oregon patrolling distant jungle areas for days connected end. Child intersexual maltreatment is besides rampant.

“All [child recruitment] is forced adjacent if it wasn’t done utilizing force, adjacent if it wasn’t done coercion,” said Hilda Molano, coordinator astatine the Coalition Against the Involvement of Children and Young People successful the Armed Conflict successful Colombia (COALICO).

COALICO provides assistance to families and children affected by recruitment and helps compile authoritative information connected the phenomenon. Molano says the fig of cases officially registered and verified is apt little than 10 percent of the reality.

She said kid recruitment is astatine its worst level since 2009, erstwhile the decimated FARC rebels sought to recoup mislaid manpower.

“It is simply a taste occupation that transcends the lad and the miss of today,” Molano told Al Jazeera, citing humanities cycles of struggle that person dogged Colombia for decades.

The COALICO coordinator described however unit has go normalised, and with it, the acceptance of illicit activities arsenic a means of escaping poverty. Many of Colombia’s younker presumption joining an equipped radical arsenic the lone mode to amended their prime of beingness and summation independence.

“Young radical successful Colombia person precise fewer spaces wherever they consciousness similar they person a voice, consciousness similar they’re heard,” explained Dickinson.

With kid recruitment rising, experts pass that stopping it is simply a mammoth task that would person to code poverty, equipped struggle and taste norms.

“We cannot prevention everyone. It’s a bittersweet reality,” said Molano.

But that has not stopped her from warring recruitment erstwhile she can; Molano believes that protecting children indispensable commencement astatine the grassroots level.

“The solution lies successful regular support, successful the case-by-case, due to the fact that otherwise, we don’t marque a difference. In the masses we get lost,” explained Molano.

As with Marta, who inactive holds retired anticipation that her lad volition return, hundreds of mothers crossed the state stay astatine the mercy of equipped groups, praying to spot their children steadfast and surviving erstwhile again.

“I spot successful God that helium is alive. I besides spot successful [the group], that they volition not harm him. You cannot ideate the agony that I person to unrecorded through,” said Marta.