"Burma's army has recruited thousands of children to fill its ranks," said Jo Becker of the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) group. "The Security Council needs to show Burma's generals that they cannot get away with such horrendous practices."
The call for sanctions came as members of the Council's working group on children and armed conflict met in New York Thursday to consider a new report accusing the Burmese regime of "grave violations" against children, including patterns of underage military recruitment.
The UN has released as many as five reports since 2002 citing Burma's national army, the Tatmadaw, for violating international law prohibiting the use of child soldiers. The world body says some Burmese opposition groups are also involved in recruiting minors for military actions.
"The working group on children and armed conflict must now consider what action the Security Council should take in response to the secretary-general's new report on violations in Burma," Becker said in a statement.
In its previous resolutions, the Council indicated it might target measures -- including embargoes on arms and other military assistance -- in cases where governments and armed groups failed to end their use of child soldiers.
Human Rights Watch, which has documented how children as young as 10 are recruited by the Burmese army, claims that army officers routinely "falsify" documents to register new recruits as age 18, even if they are clearly underage.
According to former soldiers, in many training camps children made up more than 30 percent of new recruits, who are used by the Burmese army in combat against ethnic armed opposition groups.
"Children who try to escape are typically beaten, re-recruited, or imprisoned," said Becker, who believes that the army's forced recruitment is designed to fill personnel shortages as a result of increased desertion rates and army expansion.
"This expansion includes new units established to utilize arms purchased from China, India, Russia, and Ukraine," he added in a statement.
Under Burma's national law, the recruitment of anyone below age 18 is prohibited. Recruitment and use of children below the age of 15 is considered a war crime under international law.
In 2004 the military government, known as the State Peace and Development Council, established a high-level committee to prevent the recruitment of underage soldiers.
However, HRW researchers say their investigation found that the committee had taken little action to end child recruitment, instead repeatedly denying outside reports of child soldier use by government forces.
"The Security Council should not be fooled by Burma's repeated promises to address the army's use of child soldiers," said Becker. "Nothing short of an arms embargo is likely to make Burma's military government end all recruitment and use of children."
Non-state armed groups actively recruit and use children in armed conflict, while others, including the Karenni Army and Karen National Liberation Army, have taken steps to end the recruitment of children into their forces, according to HRW.
In its report, Human Rights Watch noted that cooperation by the Karenni Army and its efforts since 2002 to end the use of child soldiers had eradicated the practice, and recommended the armed group be removed from the UN secretary-general's list of parties using child soldiers.
"Burma's diplomatic supporters in the Security Council, China and Russia, are also its main arms suppliers," Becker said. "These countries sell weapons to Burma with scant regard for the impact on the civilian population."
Meanwhile, the influential London-based human rights group Amnesty International is deeply concerned about the continued arrests of political dissidents in Burma, despite the assurance by Prime Minister Thein Sein to the UN Special Representative Ibrahim Gambari last month that no more arrests would be carried out.
Two months after the violent crackdown on demonstrators in Burma, the suppression of freedom of expression and association continues unabated, Amnesty said, calling for a stern response from the international community.
Amnesty International said about 700 people arrested during and since the September protests remain behind bars, while 1,150 political prisoners held prior to the protests have not been released.
The group has charged that many detainees have been poorly treated -- and in some cases tortured -- while others have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms. It said the Burmese regime has still not accounted for those killed during the demonstrations, or for those subjected to enforced disappearance.
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