School Recruiting Could Violate Int'l Protocol

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School Recruiting Could Violate Int'l Protocol
Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, 13 May (IPS) - Pressed by the demands of the 'global war on terrorism', the United States is violating an international protocol that forbids the recruitment of children under the age of 18 for military service, according to a new report released Tuesday by a major civil rights group that charged that recruitment practices target children as young as 11 years old.

The 46-page report, 'Soldiers of Misfortune', which was prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for submission to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, also found that the U.S. military disproportionately targets poor and minority public school students.

Military recruiters, according to the report, use 'exaggerated promises of financial rewards for enlistment, undermines the voluntariness of their enlistment.' In some cases documented by the report, recruiters used coercion, deception, and even sexual abuse in order to gain recruits. Perpetrators of such practices are only very rarely punished, the report found.

'The United States military's procedures for recruiting students plainly violate internationally accepted standards and fail to protect youth from abusive and aggressive recruitment tactics,' said Jennifer Turner of the ACLU Human Rights Project.

The increased aggressiveness of military recruiters is due in major part, according to the report, to the increased pressure to meet enlistment quotas caused by ongoing U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to which nearly 200,000 soldiers and marines are currently deployed.

The pressure created by current military commitments has not only translated into enhanced recruitment efforts among children under 18. The armed forces have also lowered their standards for minimum-intelligence tests, made it easier to enlist individuals with criminal records, and increased re-enlistment bonuses for soldiers who might otherwise be tempted to leave the service.

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