October 29, 2014

Child soliders recruited by the Islamic State

located:	Iraq, Syria
editor:	Vanessa Ellingham

The Islamic State is recruiting children as young as six years old as child soliders, indoctrinating them with extremist beliefs and teaching them basic fighting skills.

The widespread, very well organised program said to be on an "industrial scale" signals that IS is preparing for a long war with the West - one which will require military from future generations.

According to Foreign Policy magazine, the children "stand in the front row at public beheadings and crucifixions held in Raqqa, the Islamic State's stronghold in Syria. They're used for blood transfusions when Islamic State fighters are injured. They are paid to inform on people who are disloyal or speak out against the Islamic State." And they are trained as suicide bombers.

No figures are yet available for how many children have been recruited, but evidence collected by the UN Refugee Agency from refugees fleeing the Islamic State, as well as from human rights groups and journalists describe the same thing: widespread indoctrination of children.

First-hand reports say children are being kept away from regular schooling, making the Islamic State's propaganda their primary education focus. The program is designed to dehumanise those not following their doctrine and champion the nobility of dying for your faith.

UN assistant secretary-general for human rights Ivan Simonovic recently returned from interviewing displaced Iraqis.

He said that the Islamic State children's programs "project an image of being victorious" and offer the promise that those who fall in battle will "go straight to heaven."

"What is striking for me is to meet mothers who [tell us], 'We don't know what to do,'" he said. "Our sons are volunteering and we can't prevent it."

A website which covers the Syrian civil war, Syria Deeply, reported in September that boys who join or are abducted by IS militants are taken to religious or military training camps where some are trained in how to behead another human being. According to their report, IS even provides dolls on which to practice beheading.