BEIRUT: Syria´s leading Kurdish force is recruiting children from displacement camps in the country´s northeast in violation of international law, Human Rights Watch said on Friday.
Thousands of people live in camps scattered across parts of Syria held by the Kurdish People´s Protection Units (YPG), a US ally against the Islamic State group. The YPG has used child soldiers in the past, according to the United Nations, HRW and other rights groups, and has not put a stop to the practice despite pledging to do so.
"It´s especially horrendous that the group is recruiting children from the vulnerable families in displacement camps without their parents´ knowledge or even telling them where their children are," said Priyanka Motaparthy, HRW´s acting emergencies director.
There was no immediate response from the YPG to an AFP request for comment. International law prohibits non-state armed factions from recruiting anyone under the age of 18, and enlisting children under 15 is a war crime.
HRW spoke to eight families in three displacement camps in northeastern Syria who said Kurdish militiamen and security forces had encouraged their children to enlist.
The youngest among them was a 13-year-old girl. "We are poor, so they told my daughter they would give her money and clothes," her mother told HRW. She objected, but her daughter enlisted in the forces and had not been heard from for around a month.
