Some essential reading - especially for politicians

A joint report by the UK campaign group ForcesWatch and international human rights advocacy group Child Soldiers International was published recently. It advocates ending recruitment of minors by the UK armed forces, so as no politician or ‘community group’ on this septic isle is likely to refer parents to it, maybe I’d better.

You can find it in full at http://www.forceswatch.net/sites/default/files/One_Step_Forward_April_2013.pdf and if you are a responsible Manx parent maybe you should take a look.

In the introduction, the researchers begin by explaining:

“Currently, the British Armed Forces recruit from age 16. This paper shows that staffing the Forces exclusively with adults over the age of 18 is entirely feasible and would save at least £81.5 million per annum. It also shows that all-adult armed forces would be easier to manage, operate more effectively, and better serve young people’s interests.”

The UK alone amongst EU countries recruits minors, and on a wider international scale it seems to be the last country in theory governed by a democratic government to do so. This leaves the UK up there with bastions of child rights like North Korea and Iran. Oh joy!

As the researchers continue:

“The legal age of responsibility in the UK bars minors from activities deemed by common consent to be harmful, or which require the maturity of adulthood, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, most forms of gambling, watching an adult film, signing a legal contract and working in the civil emergency services. The risks and obligations of military life surpass all these.

The personal risks of military life affect the youngest recruits most. Several negative outcomes are more common among minors than adults, including self-harm, post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual harassment and bullying. A disproportionately large number of minors join the Infantry, where the risk of fatality in Afghanistan has been five times that faced by the rest of the Army.”

Ah, but kids don’t get sent to Afghanistan, do they?

Well, actually……

“As a State Party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC), the UK must take “all feasible measures” to ensure that members of its armed forces aged less than 18 “do not take a direct part in hostilities’.”

In addition, the UN forbids minors from serving as peacekeepers. This – in theory – should be enough, thus the common myth that minors are never sent into combat zones. But it is a myth, because:

“Occasionally, units containing minors are deployed to war zones. Since 2003, at least 20 minors were accidentally deployed to operational theatres in Afghanistan and Iraq; one was in Helmand for six weeks and took part in armed combat.”

And we do need to worry about this because:

“Soldiers who enlist as minors typically face the greatest risks once they turn 18 and are deployed to war zones. This is because they enlist in disproportionately high numbers in the Army’s front-line roles, such as those in the Infantry, where the risk of death or injury in Afghanistan has been five times that faced by soldiers in the rest of the Army. Minors, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are more likely to enlist in these roles as GCSEs are not required and there are always vacancies available. As a consequence, the Infantry contains one third of all the Army’s minors even though it comprises only one quarter of the Army overall. Of the 34 British armed forces fatalities in Afghanistan aged 18 and 19 to date, 30 were Infantrymen and 27 had enlisted as minors. Infantrymen killed in Afghanistan have been two years younger on average than fatalities in the rest of the Army. These tragic facts reflect the over-representation of young people in the Infantry, their consequent increased exposure to risk, and the Army’s practice of deploying soldiers to Afghanistan very soon after their 18th birthday.”

Still, that’s a small risk and, if you’re a kid who didn’t do well at school, at least the Army can make a man of you, can’t it?

Well…….

“As international norms governing military recruitment progress, the UK is becoming increasingly isolated as the only state of the EU, Council of Europe and United Nations Security Council Permanent Members that still recruits from age 16.

A common defence of the current policy is that it supports the social mobility of young people but this is also now in question. Whilst young people can gain from a military career, recruiting school-leavers diverts them from the broader and superior educational and training opportunities of the civilian system. The Army’s educational offer for minors is limited to low-grade qualifications and omits those that young people most need in the long-term – high-grade GSCEs in English and Maths.”

But with all this youth unemployment at least that’s something, isn’t it?

No, a red herring actually, because:

“The MoD argues that the recruitment of minors provides employment and training opportunities for young people who might otherwise be unemployed.

In fact, few 16 year-olds are in the market for work; in 2009-10, 94% of 16-year-olds were staying on in education, largely thanks to successive governments’ policies aimed at enhancing social mobility. By attempting to recruit young people leaving school at 16, the armed forces are in de facto competition with the civilian education sector.

The educational opportunities available to new armed forces recruits do not compare well with civilian alternatives. A report by Child Soldiers International in 2012 found that qualifications available to minors in the Army, which accounts for nine out of ten armed forces recruits aged 16, do not include GCSEs, A- or AS-levels, BTECs, HNCs or HNDs. The Army’s only formal target for the education of minors is that they achieve a Functional Skills qualification in literacy and numeracy at Level One, which is approximately equivalent to GCSE grade G.”

The report goes on to explore the issue from all angles – human rights, education, economic costs, personnel management amongst them, and in far more important detail than I can cherry-pick here. You really need to look at it all.

But it concludes:

“The armed forces would benefit from personnel who are more mature. Training and operations would be streamlined by a more manageable system without, as now, different arrangements for minors and adults. Young people would reap lasting benefits from staying on for longer in civilian education before becoming eligible to enlist. As adults, potential recruits would be better placed to give informed consent to the risks and obligations that enlistment entails, and less likely to drop out of training. The Exchequer would benefit from substantial efficiency savings.”

All pretty common sense when you put it together like that. Sadly, it doesn’t appear any government body has done so, which is why the report advocates that it now should.