recruitment age

Armed forces report reveals MPs’ confusion over recruitment of under-18s

The report by the House of Commons Committee on the Armed Forces Bill has rejected proposals to raise the minimum age of recruitment to 18.  But ForcesWatch, an NGO that submitted evidence to the Committee, suggests that the wording of the report reveals a lack of clarity over the law in this area, even among MPs and senior military personnel.

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‘Boy soldiers’ artwork shown outside Parliament

A three-dimensional art installation depicting child soldiers is being displayed outside the Houses of Parliament as part of a peace campaign.

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Informed Choice? Armed forces recruitment practice in the United Kingdom

An independent report by David Gee, published in 2007, highlighting the risks posed to young people through joining the military, how young people from disadvantaged communities are targeted, how information available to potential recruits is often misleading and how the terms of service are complicated, confusing and severely restricting. The research found that a large proportion join for negative reasons, including the lack of civilian career options.

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Parliament urged to end UK’s recruitment of ‘child soldiers’

Children and young people's rights groups are calling for a change in the law to end the recruitment of 16 and 17-year-olds into the UK armed forces.

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UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights report on Children’s Rights

In their report on Children's Rights, the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights recommended that the 'UK adopt a plan of action for implementing the Optional Protocol, including these recommendations, fully in the UK, together with a clear timetable for doing so.' The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommendations under the Optional Protocol were that the UK 'reconsider its active policy of recruitment of children into the armed forces' and a number of other measures.

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United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict

The UK remains the only EU country to recruit 16 year olds into the military and one of very few EU countries to recruit 17 year olds. The UK has signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict yet there is evidence that the UK continues to target children from vulnerable groups and that safeguards to protect under-18s are not effective.

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Britain’s child army

“Stricken by Iraq and low morale, the British army is on a desperate recruitment drive. Its new targets? Poorly educated teenagers and young schoolchildren.”

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