ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Children as young as 10 are being used as soldiers in Iraq in the fight against the Islamic State group (ISIS), Human Rights Watch said in a recent report. “Iraqi Shia militias fighting ISIS alongside Iraqi government forces are also using kids,” said the report, exposing that ISIS is not the only armed group sending children into battles. According to the report, children used in the fight against ISIS have even been shown propaganda videos before being sent in to fight. There is evidence that some of these child soldiers are a young as 10 years old, HRW reported. It mentioned the case of Nur, an 11-year- old boy it said had fought with the Popular Mobilization Units, also known as Hashd al-Shabi, which has been fighting alongside the Iraqi Army. HRW said he had fought alongside his father in battles near Baghdad and in Baiji. A Hashd video in May showed a 10-year-old girl identifying herself as Zahra and saying she is proud to fight ISIS, as she stands together with a group of men in military uniforms. Iraqi Prime Minster Haider al-Abadi launched a large international conference in mid-June, highlighting the recruitment and use of children by ISIS and calling on the United Nations to condemn this. Despite Abadi’s call for an international response on ISIS using child soldiers, the Iraqi government has remained silent about allied Shiite militias engaged in the same practice. From Basra to Diyala the Shiite militias have set up military training camps for children, a Basra-based activist and a journalist who visited several camps told HRW.
