Children of Syria

In 2011, when handful of children from Syria’s southern city of Daraa drew a graffiti proclaiming--the people want the regime to fall - little did anyone predict that the writing on the wall by teenagers would unravel a people’s uprising which itself would overturn into a deadly war, that has till now left over 200,000 dead and forced over half of the country’s Syrians from their homes. Three and a half years since the first simmering of people’s revolt, the call for which incongruously came from the children, has made the same children of Syria one of the biggest casualties of the war, whose end in the near future seems unpredictable. Out of Syria’s 22 million populations, 42 per cent is under the age of 18 years. Of this, 6.5 million Syrian children, living inside and outside Syria, according to the UNICEF report, have been impacted by the war. The conflict in Syria has caused immense psychological and physical trauma on the young girls and boys of all ages, who are experiencing the violence and destruction first hand. From being recruited as child soldiers to fight from the frontlines to facing violence, deaths, atrocities, sexual abuses and witnessing the horrors of the war every day, the ongoing conflict has an alarming impact on children.

Last month, ISIS fighters and supporters circulated a photo of a 10 year-old holding gun in hand on social media as the youngest `martyr’ in the ongoing war. The young boy reportedly died in a US air-strike fighting alongside his militant father. Since 2013, 229 young boys under the age of 18 years, who were not civilians, have been killed during the fighting by war plane shelling or shooting. This figure emanates from the use of children as soldiers and or as supporters on the front line by the non-state actors like the extremist Sunni radical group and other affiliated militant groups.

Child soldiers form one of the characteristics of New Wars where irregular military forces or non-state armies dominate the battlefield. This is reflected in the current war in Syria where groups like ISIS, Jabhat al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham, and the FSA are fighting against the regime of President Bashar al Assad as well with each other. The use of children by non-state armed groups in combat roles has been reported since late 2011. This number has only increased with the entry of multiple actors in the conflict. Lack of professional and regular armed soldiers; drive these groups to conscript children by force to increase their strength of fighters. The young and impressionable minds of children are easy to doctrinate and once recruited, are likely to stay longer with the group. Many of these young children are recruited, trained and used in active combat roles as they good and quick at learning and therefore become easy targets for radicalisation and imparting skills training. Plus being of a vulnerable age, children avoid risks of defections or forming an opposition group.

In the war and conflict environment where torture, killings and violence is an everyday occurrence, many children willingly take up arms alongside male family members or with friends. With schools being shut and day to day normal activities of routine life taking a hilt, young children and especially teenagers become vulnerable to join the battlefield and fighting for a cause. This seems likely as a reason on how children joined rebel groups like the Free Syrian Army which fought against the government regime at the start of the conflict. However, there are large numbers of children who are conscripted by force by militant groups. In some cases, children are enlisted from refugee camps in neighbouring countries and from within Syria, while in others children were kidnapped, taken as hostages or separated from adults during the siege and transferred to military training. Such camps have been established across Syria where fighters are first indoctrinated with radical ideologue which includes intense lessons in Quran and Shariah law to familiarise them with the ideology of the Islamic groups and its cause. The children are trained in military operations, handling light weapons, use of improvised explosive devices, physical fitness drills, shown videos of operations, taken to witness real beheadings, taught beheadings on dolls, made to arrest and whip prisoners. This training prepares the impressionable minds of young children for blood and gore and eventually thrown in the frontlines of the battlefield. Not all children are involved in direct combat roles, some are deployed at check posts, used as guards, informants, to patrol the streets, carriers of arms and ammunitions, actually fighting on the frontlines and even as suicide bombers. ISIS is also offering monetary rewards or monthly salaries from US$100 a month—$135. The International humanitarian law (the laws of war) and human rights law prohibit the recruitment and use of children as soldiers. So far, the Syrian Kurdish armed force of Yekiniyen Parastina Gel or the People’s Protection Unit is the only group to have demobilised teenaged and young fighters from its forces and has banned the recruitment of child soldiers. The number of children to join armed groups or currently fighting remains undocumented so far.

The Syrian government has also been accused of deliberately targeting children through torture, detention sexual abuse to obtain information or confessions and using them as human shield. Over 13,000 children have died in the conflict so far. The primary cause of death, according to a report by Oxford Research Group, was explosive weapons, killing 71 per cent of the children along with air bombardment and small-arms. There are 764 cases of summary execution and 389 cases of sniper fire with clear evidence of children being specifically targeted. The alleged chemical attack in Ghouta on 21 August 2013, killed over 426 children.

Bombings, war-plane shelling, firing has caused much of destruction in the country damaging critical infrastructure including power stations, water and sanitation services, hospitals and schools. One in every five schools in Syria is stand in decrepit conditions as a result of bombings and converted into shelters for displaced families or serve as military command stations, shelters and storage facilities by government and rebel forces. Before the onset of the war, more than 8 million students were enrolled in school, with the literacy rate for all people aged 15 and over being 79.6 per cent. This number has taken a major downfall since the last two years, with just 30 percent of Syrian children having access to education.

Those children within Syria who continue schooling have to battle for survival, as schools have become targets of indiscriminate attacks. The shelling and targeting of schools at the time of gatherings or large attendance is a deliberate attempt and follows a clear pattern of armed groups’ intentionally targeted civilian localities due to their perceived support of the Government, occasionally along sectarian lines. On 5 November attack on the Al Hayat Primary School in the district of Qaboun in eastern Damascus killed 13 children and injured others. Both teachers and students risk their lives for education and have paid heavy price for doing so. A UN report, noted that in 2014 alone 35 schools were attacked in fighting between government forces and opposition forces, killing 105 children and injuring 293.

With school buildings being attacked in barrel bombings and being surrounded by snipers, sending children to attend classes has become `dangerous.’ Out of insecurity, parents don’t let their children to schools which have led to over 3 million children dropping out since 2011. The status of education for children amongst refugees is equally disturbing. The violence inflicted in Syria by both state and non-state actors has caused displacement of over 10 million of the population. Of this, over 1.25 million refugees are children. A little over 118,000 of the refugee children have been able to continue in some sort of education. In Jordan’s Zaatari camp which is the second largest such, is home to approximately 56,000 children. However, only 6,000 of these children have enrolled in school. The refugee camp itself is a dangerous place where kidnappings, sexual violence and rape are common occurrence. Many parents prefer keeping their children close by around instead of taking the risk of sending to attend classes. In case of young girls in refugee camps, many are being married at early ages or arranged in marriages with heavy dowries, to pay off high expenses. With refugee camps and host countries offering little to no opportunities for work, and survival costs exceeding, young refugee children and out-of-school teenagers have taken to work. Children living outside the camp are often forced into exploitative working conditions in local farms and factories in Lebanon and Turkey for over 10 hour shifts for less than 70p an hour. Around 200,000 Syrian child refugees are currently working as labourers in Lebanon working in agriculture fields.

Displacement of population has also dramatically increased the number of children born in exile-- more than 50,000 in neighbouring countries. The lack of basic facilities including water, sanitation and health services in the war ravaged Syria and in the refugee camps is having a serious impact on the physical and mental health of children. Over 200,000 children under 5 are at the risk of under nutrition. Filthy living conditions have given way to infections and diseases. In 14 years for the first time, the deadly polio virus re-emerged in Syria, paralysing 36 children. The polio immunization drive is badly hit due to ongoing fighting, with less than 50 per cent of children receiving the antidote. There are another 1 million children living in areas under siege or deemed too dangerous for aid workers to reach, who remain at risk of malnutrition and health treatment.

As the war in Syria continues with protracted hostilities and no near end in sight, the country has become one of the most dangerous places on earth for children. Millions of children have lost the childhood entirely and are forced to grow-up fast. Living and surviving in the conflict zone riddled with shootings, bombardments, witnessing killings and participating in violence has put much of the children population at risk of mental and behavioural disorders with a long lasting impact. According to medical psychiatrists, the symptoms of trauma amongst Syrian children include fear, depression and anger. UNICEF Executive Director and former U.S. National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, has called the Syrian crisis a "national security issue, not just a humanitarian one and fears that the next generation of Syria will see the  replication of the same violence and the same problems that will affect both the region and the world." The effects of the ongoing war on children will be realised more than ever when the war in Syria will come to an end, with an entire younger generation recovering from the trauma of fighting as armed combatants, wide-scale illiteracy, inadequate education, exploitation and malnourishment. If the children of Syria are not protected and provided with the ability to overcome the trauma, their suffering is more likely to spawn another cycle of vengeance, hatred and violence. The war in Syria is not just making victimising the children but it also runs the risk of turning them as perpetrators.

The author is Associate Fellow at CLAWS. Views expressed are personal.