QAMISHLI, Syria —
Kurdish protesters in northeastern
Syria demonstrated outside UN offices on Sunday against what they say is the
continued recruitment of teenage girls for combat, an AFP correspondent reported.
اضافة اعلان
A decade of war in Syria has seen all parties to the
conflict recruit minors, both boys and girls.
A report published by the
UN in May said that more than 400
children were recruited between July 2018 and June 2020 by the People's
Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia, and its affiliates in
northeastern Syria.
The YPG is the dominant force in the Syrian Democratic
Forces, the Kurdish-led autonomous administration's de facto army.
On Sunday, nearly 30 people gathered outside a UN building
in the city of Qamishli to demand action after a number of girls were reported
to have been recruited into fighting, some of them allegedly by force.
The protesters carried banners saying: "Bring back our
children" and "Child recruitment sows panic in the heart of mothers."
Mohammad Sharif said his 16-year-old daughter had been
missing for almost a week.
"I want my daughter to come back home," he told
AFP, adding that he believes she could be with the Women's Protections Units
(YPJ), sister organization of the YPG.
Balqis Hussein, 45, said her daughter had been missing for
eight days.
She said she didn't know if her child had been abducted by a
Kurdish militia or joined voluntarily.
"We fear for the future of our children, they should
not be recruited or made to hold weapons," she said.
In June 2019, Kurdish authorities signed a joint action plan
with the UN to end and prevent child recruitment.
But since its signing, the UN has confirmed at least 160
cases.
Khaled Jabir, the co-head of the Kurdish administration's
child protection unit, said his office had "recently received a number of
complaints regarding child recruitment into combat".
"There are several attempts to return children to their
families," he told AFP.
"We categorically reject child recruitment by any party."
Jabir said more than 213 children recruited by Kurdish
militias have been returned to their families, including 54 who were handed
over in the past month.
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