[Peace-discuss] Military recruitment of children

[Brussel Morton K.]

Something we might be able to use at our schools? --mkb

School Recruiting Could Violate Intl. Protocol

by Jim Lobe
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 [.pdf] 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 UN  
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, [which] 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.

The report, which also detailed Washington's failure to protect  
foreign child soldiers being held by U.S. forces at the Guantanamo  
Bay detention facility and elsewhere around the world as part of its  
submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, assesses  
Washington's compliance with the Optional Protocol on the Involvement  
of Children in Armed Conflict.

The Protocol, which is attached to the Convention on the Rights of  
the Child, is designed to protect the rights of children under 18 who  
may be recruited by the military and deployed to war.

Among other provisions, the Protocol sets an absolute minimum age for  
recruitment of 16 and requires that all recruitment activities  
directed at children under 18 be carried out with the consent of the  
child's parents or guardian, that any such recruitment be genuinely  
volunteer, and the military fully inform the child of the duties  
involved in military service and require reliable proof of age before  
enlistment.

While the United States is one of only two countries – the other  
being Somalia – to have never ratified the Convention on the Rights  
of the Child, the U.S. Senate ratified the Protocol in 2002, making  
it binding under U.S., as well as international, law. Unlike most  
other industrialized countries that set their minimum recruitment age  
at 18, the Senate decided on 17 as the absolute minimum for the  
United States.

According to the ACLU report, however, the U.S. armed services  
"regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment, heavily  
recruiting on high school campuses, in school lunchrooms, and in  
classes."

The army's own Recruiting Program Handbook, for example, instructs  
its more than 10,600 recruiters to approach high school students as  
early as possible, and explicitly before their senior year, which,  
for most students, starts at age 17. "Remember, first to contact,  
first to contract … that doesn't just mean seniors or grads,"  
according to an excerpt quoted in the report. "If you wait until  
they're seniors, it's probably too late."

Once recruiters are inside their assigned high schools, the Army's  
Recruiting Command instructs them to "effectively penetrate the  
school market" and be "so helpful and so much a part of the school  
scene that you are in constant demand," with the goal of "school  
ownership that can only lead to a greater number of Army  
enlistments." That includes volunteering to serve as coaches for high  
school sports teams, involvement with the local Boy Scouts, attending  
as many school functions and assemblies, and even "eating lunch in  
the school cafeteria several times each month."

The report documents a number of specific cases, mostly in New York  
and California – the two most populous states with the largest number  
of minority high school students – in which recruiters clearly  
followed these instructions. In a survey of nearly 1,000 children,  
aged 14 to 17, enrolled in New York City high schools, the ACLU New  
York affiliate found that more than one five respondents – equally  
distributed among the different grades – reported the use of class  
time by military recruiters, and 35 percent said military recruiters  
had access to multiple locations in their schools where they could  
meet students.

The report also noted that the Pentagon's central recruitment  
database systematically collected information on 16-year-olds and, in  
some cases even 15-year-olds, including their name, home address and  
telephones, e-mail addresses, grade point averages, height and weight  
information, and racial and ethnic data obtained from a variety of  
public and private sources. The explicit purpose of the database is  
to assist the military in its "direct marketing recruiting efforts."  
As the result of a 2006 ACLU lawsuit, the Pentagon agreed to stop  
collecting data about students younger than 16.

But recruitment efforts even dip below 15-year-olds, according to the  
report, which found that the Pentagon's Reserve Officer Training  
Corps (JROTC), which operate at more than 3,000 junior high schools,  
middle schools, and high schools across the country, target children  
as young as 14 for recruitment. The report cited recent studies that  
found that enrollment in some JROTC programs was involuntary.

JROTC "cadets," of whom there were nearly 300,000 in 2005, receive  
military uniforms and conduct military drills and marches, handle  
real and wooden rifles, and learn military history, according to the  
report, which noted that the program is explicitly designed to  
"enhance recruiting efforts." African American and Latin students  
make up 54 percent of JROTC programs.

JROTC also oversees the Middle School Cadet Corps (MSCC), in which  
children ages 11 to 14 can participate, according to the report.  
Florida, Texas, and Chicago schools offer military-run after-school  
MSCC programs in which children take part in drills with wooden  
rifles and military chants, learn first-aid, civics, military  
history, and, in some cases, wear uniforms to school for inspection  
once a week.

The Army also uses an online video game, called "America's Army," to  
attract potential recruits as young as 13, train them to use weapons,  
and engage in virtual combat and other military missions. Launched in  
2002, the video game had attracted 7.5 million registered users by  
September 2006.

"Military recruitment tools aimed at youth under 18, including  
Pentagon-produced video games, military training, corps, and  
databases of students' personal information, have no place in  
America's schools," said Turner.

(Inter Press Service)
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