Iran is recruiting children as young as 12 into military-aligned roles in a desperate effort to mobilise the population and bolster its war effort, human rights groups have warned.
Rahim Nadali, the deputy director of culture and arts at the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), called for members of the general public to step up and “defend the homeland” in comments to Iran’s state-affiliated news agency Defa Press.
Mr Nadali said the IRGC, which played a central role in the crackdown on Iranian protesters in January, would offer opportunities to the Iranian public to “play a role” in the conflict.
He said volunteers from the age of 12 and above could be considered for roles in operational and security areas, support and logistics, service and supplies or health and treatment.
Human Rights Watch, a US-based watchdog, said on Monday that the military recruitment and use of children aged under 15 was a violation of children’s rights and a war crime. Iran is bound by a customary international law regulating this.
“There is no excuse for a military recruitment drive that targets children to sign up, much less 12-year-olds,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at HRW.
“What this boils down to is that Iranian authorities are apparently willing to risk children’s lives for some extra manpower.”
Mr Nadali said in a TV interview on 26 March: “Given the ages that were making demands, we have set the [minimum] age at 12. Meaning now there are kids of 12 and 13 who want to be present in this space.”
He told Defa Press that members of the public would be able to assist in intelligence patrols, stop and search tours and operational patrols.
There were also roles for medical staff and in cooking food and distributing supplies for soldiers.
Witnesses told the BBC that they had seen children, including some armed, in security roles in Tehran and other cities.
The Norway-based Hengaw Organization for Human Rights called the initiative a “systematic crime against children”.
Hengaw reported this week on the death of Alireza Jafari, an 11-year-old boy who was killed in a drone strike “while on duty” at a checkpoint in Tehran, according to the Basij Teachers Organization.
The child’s mother told the state-affiliated Hamshahri newspaper that he had been taken to the checkpoint by his father due to a “shortage of personnel”.
Thousands of people have been killed across the region in just over a month of fighting, which began when the US and Israel struck Iran on 28 February.
US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said 3,486 people have been killed since the war erupted. It said 1,568 of those were civilians, including at least 236 children.
Iranian officials say that at least 168 people, including about 110 children, were killed in an attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh school in the southern Iranian city of Minab on the first day of the war.
A preliminary investigation is said to have blamed a “mistake” by the US military, although a full probe is still pending.
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