Campaign group Progressive Voice has drawn attention to how the junta has been abusing children and called for the international community to “wake up and pivot away from a ‘business as usual’ [attitude] towards the military junta”.
The group has also called for more action to help children from the international community, particularly the UN and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Since 1 February 2021, the military junta has killed at least 100 children according to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, during his report to the Human Rights Council on 21 March 2022, but others like the Media Monitoring Committee have the numbers as high as 239, including a shocking 47 killed in March 2022 alone.
Horrifyingly, these killings are increasing, including at least 10 children who were killed by the junta in the space of a week at the beginning of March.
More and more children are being murdered due to airstrikes and shelling, particularly in Myanmar’s central regions of Magwe and Sagaing and ethnic areas of Karen, Karenni and Chin States.
On 22 March, an eight-year-old boy was killed and several others were injured, including a teenage girl by relentless artillery shelling by the Myanmar military on civilians in Htan Be Hla Village in Ye-U Township, Sagaing Region.
In the early days of the protest movement against the failed coup, children were killed on sight, playing in the street or in their houses - such as 6-year-old Khin Myo Chit, killed in her father’s arms inside her home in Mandalay Region and 13-year-old Sal Wal Yan shot in the back of the head running away from junta soldiers while playing in a Yangon street, and whose body was taken and desecrated in an attempt to conceal the crime.
Since then, the junta has perpetrated savage massacres of civilians, such as the Christmas Eve Massacre in Hpruso Township, Karenni State, where the junta massacred and burned at least 42 civilians, including at least three children and two Save the Children staff. Horrific killings like these still continue. For instance, in late March two boys (six-years-old and eight-years-old) were shot and killed inside a car during a clash between the Myanmar military and the Karen National Liberation Army.
According to Progressive Voice these savage acts are nothing new. For decades, the Myanmar military has terrorized ethnic communities indiscriminately killing children, notably in Karen, Kachin, Shan, Chin, Karenni and Rakhine States.
Local civil society organizations, UN mandate holders and the UN Human Rights Council mandated Independent International Fact-finding Mission on Myanmar and Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar have provided the international community with ample evidence of atrocity crimes committed by the Myanmar military. Yet, To date, not a single perpetrator within the Myanmar military has been brought to justice.
Amidst the ongoing inhumane violence, children and young people are being arbitrarily detained in increasing numbers.
The National Unity Government (NUG)’s Minister of Women, Youths and Children, Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe says that at least 287 children have been detained by the junta since 1 February, 2021. She explains to the Guardian that “When they could not find the people, they arrested the children as a ransom. They also ask the activist to come and be arrested so that this child will be released.”
According to Progressive Voice one such case of this is that of Su Myat Zaw, three-years-old, who has been held in detention at Insein Prison with her mother, Tin May Oo and grandmother Daw Kathy, for over a year, after her father was suspected of participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement. Tin May Oo and Daw Kathy were both handed three-year prison sentences last week, on bogus charges under section 505a of the Penal Code. They are still in prison with Su Myat Zaw, while Tin May Oo’s other five children are not in prison.
Last week an 11-year-old Moe Lun was abducted, beaten and tortured in Mandalay by junta soldiers who suspected Moe Lun of being a People’s Defence Force member.
Myanmar’s children and youth are also unlawfully being given hefty sentences, including the death penalty. A total of 110 people including two children and many young people, have been unlawfully sentenced to death for minor acts, such as being in protests or conducting pro-democracy activities, deemed by the junta as “terrorism”.
