The Status of Underage Recruitment Cases in the UNICEF Database as of April 2007

by Child Protection Authority, June 18, 2007

A statement made by the Child Protection Authority-Kilinochchi (CPA)

CPA’s work: Throughout this year CPA has been obtaining at a fast pace the release of underage children born in or after 1990 who are found to be with the LTTE. CPA has also initiated extensive training programs to LTTE members in the field about the urgency to end underage recruitment and have given instructions to not recruit anyone born in or after 1990. This condition on the age of recruitment progressively increases the minimum age of recruitment from 17 in January 2007 to 18 by end of 2007.

Thus, if this target set by CPA to release everyone born in or after 1990 and not to recruit anyone born in or after 1990 is reached, then by end 2007 there will be no one under the age of 18 within the LTTE ranks. If the LTTE then maintains this minimum age, its age of recruitment will meet the international standard of 18 years.

In addition to seeking the release of cases that have been brought to the notice of the CPA by parents and other agencies, the CPA has also actively sought information from the wider community about cases known to them of those within the LTTE who may be younger than the set minimum age. CPA has placed notices in the various media seeking this information. This was necessary because many of the underage youths who join the LTTE have often given the wrong date of birth in order to get admitted into the LTTE. CPA therefore did not rely on the words of the youths themselves to determine their age.

UNICEF statistics: At the end of April UNICEF published statistics on its underage database of those in LTTE. A breakdown of these statistics is as follows.

Of these 307 cases born in or after 1990, 172 cases are from the three eastern districts. CPA initiated a process in the beginning of this year of checking these cases from the eastern districts and, if found to be with the LTTE, then obtaining the release of these cases. Through this process, the CPA was able to obtain the release of 20 cases from the eastern districts at the beginning of this year. However, in March, the major military attacks on civilians in the east launched by the Sri Lankan government brought an end to this process. Large scale civilian displacement and the shifting of the LTTE to the interior makes the resumption of this process started by CPA next to impossible.

CPA and the LTTE have already held in-depth discussions with UNICEF explaining the problems faced by the CPA in dealing with the cases from the east.

For the most part of this year, the CPA has therefore concentrated on the release of the remaining 135 cases from the five northern districts born in or after 1990.

A breakdown of the status of these 135 cases from the five northern districts is shown in the table below. As can be seen, the CPA has made substantial progress in completing the process of releasing these 135 cases. CPA hopes UNICEF, too, will make all efforts to do its part in completing its process of clearing its database of these 135 cases.

ESDC: There are 14 cases at ESDC [an vocational training center in the north] from the UNICEF list. Eight of these are problem cases where the children are either refusing to go home or the home is not a safe place for the children. UNICEF is in the process of organizing a place and time to bring these children and their parents/guardians together to resolve the cases. In most of these cases the children have a broken dysfunctional home. Another three are waiting for the parents to report to ESDC to go home. The parents of one case are in the GoSL [government-controlled] area and are unable to come to the ESDC. Two children have recently gone home.

Reaching the target: CPA hopes that the work that has been done and the work that is ongoing will convince people of the determination of the LTTE to implement the set minimum age as described, which will bring the minimum age of recruitment for the LTTE to international standard by the end 2007.

The hurdles that CPA faces in achieving this target are two-fold: the problems the CPA faces in the east and delays and other problems on the part of UNICEF in helping the CPA to clear the UNICEF underage database.