United Nations Radio

Children living in conflict areas are subjected to grave physical and mental violations by the warring parties. In addition to being forcibly recruited as soldiers, sex slaves or labourers, they suffer the direct consequences of war including displacement, starvation and illness. Myanmar is one of the countries where the situation of children is alarming. UN Radio's Jocelyne Sambira reports.

NARR: One in five children in the Myanmar conflict areas dies before the age of five according to human rights groups in the area. Children caught in the conflict also fall prey to forcible recruitment by the militia and regular army. Esther Lay is a living testimony to that. An active member of the Burmese NGO Karen Human Rights Group, she recounts her own painful experience.

LAY: Being with the children in a jungle school for nearly 20 years, I have witnessed first-hand the hardship of my own children and other children in my community. These children never experienced peace but live in constant fear for their lives. They saw with their own eyes their parents being killed, their sister being raped, their family members being taken away to be porters for the military.

SAMBIRA: Civilians caught in the conflict are living in deplorable humanitarian conditions. Esther Lay gives a vivid description of their fate, asking the international community not to turn a blind eye.

LAY: Right now, children in rural Burma are facing a severe food crisis. Displaced families are watering down and stretching out their meagre food supplies just to stay alive. Many other children are dying from preventable diarrhoea, malaria and dengue fever. This is the direct result of the human rights abuses by the Burmese government and the military which deliberately prevents villages from accessing medical assistance.

SAMBIRA: Children Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch, Jo Becker, claims more than 10,000 children are in Burma's forces. She explains why.

BECKER: The army actually offers bonuses for new recruits in the form of cash, bags of rice, containers of cooking oil. And as a result, recruiting children has become a profitable business not only for the military recruiters but also for police officers, and the local recruitment centre is an easy way to make money.

SAMBIRA: Because of this alarming state of affairs, Julia Freedson, Director of the independent organization Watchlist introduced a report entitled No More Denial during a recent press conference in New York urging the UN to take stronger action.

FREEDSON: This report charges the UN Security Council of remaining largely silent on these issues despite evidence from both UN sources and local humanitarian and human rights organizations. The report calls on the Security Council and its working group to do much more to ensure that its commitment for protection of children is upheld and that the perpetrators of these violations are held accountable.

SAMBIRA: Jocelyne Sambira for UN Radio.

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