Myanmar military releases 75 child soldiers from service

YANGON: Myanmar’s armed forces released 75 children and young people from military service on Friday, the United Nations said, amid international outrage over alleged abuses committed by troops in the country’s numerous ongoing conflicts.
Myanmar has now discharged 924 underage recruits since signing up to a joint action plan on child soldiers with U.N. agencies in June 2012, said Knut Ostby, the United Nations resident humanitarian coordinator for Myanmar, and June Kunugi, representative of the United Nations children’s fund, Unicef, in a joint statement.
The discharge was “one more positive development in the government’s effort to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children within the Tatmadaw,” they said.
Both the military – known as the Tatmadaw – and the ethnic guerrilla groups it has been fighting for decades have been blacklisted by the United Nations for using child soldiers.
The United States of America took Myanmar off its list of the worst offenders in the use of child soldiers in 2017, before reinstating it this year.
The Tatmadaw and seven other groups remained “‘persistent perpetrators’ in the recruitment and use of children in Myanmar,” the United Nations said.
Spokespeople for the Myanmar military and the government were not immediately available for comment. (Reuters)