The terrorist PKK's Syrian offshoot YPG continues to forcefully recruit minors to fight for them in combat zones in northern Iraq and Syria.
The terrorists announced a mobilization campaign in response to the military operations of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in northern Iraq, and it uses its proxies in Syria to recruit children.
Recently, a post on a website linked to the YPG/PKK showed a group of over 10 children reading out a notice.
The terrorist group's practice of abducting children and pushing them into combat zones is nothing new, as seen in the U.S. State Department's 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report.
According to the report, the YPG/PKK forcibly recruited girls as young as 12 from refugee camps located in northwestern Syria.
Moreover, a January 2020 U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report said its findings suggest the YPG/PKK is using children as fighters in Syria.
Virginia Gamba, the U.N.'s point person on ending the use of child fighters, as the secretary-general's special representative for children and armed conflict, signed an action plan with the SDF – the label the YPG/PKK uses in Syria – to end and prevent the recruitment and use of minors under 18.
Though the PKK/YPG initially signed a pledge with Geneva Call – a Swiss humanitarian organization that works to "protect civilians in armed conflict" – to stop the use of child soldiers in 2014, its use of child soldiers has only increased since then.
Late last year, parents of children who were kidnapped by the YPG staged a protest in front of the United Nations headquarters in Qamishli, northeastern Syria. Around 30 people gathered to demand action after several children, reportedly girls, were forcefully recruited by the YPG terrorists, a group primarily backed by the United States under the guise of fighting against Daesh.
Since its foundation, the PKK has forcibly taken at least one child from families that fail to "pay taxes" in support of the group. To fill its ranks, the PKK has continuously raided villages and kidnapped young adults from the ages of 15 to 20 through violent means. In addition to forced conscription, the PKK also carries out propaganda campaigns that mainly target university students. The terrorist group's approach has remained largely consistent, according to statements by captured or surrendered members of the organization.
In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union – has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.
