New Delhi – The International Labour Organization is trying to mediate with the Burmese military junta to free a child soldier.
The liaison office of the ILO on Tuesday said it will talk to Burmese ministers to release a child soldier, allegedly held in a military training camp in upper Burma. The move comes after rights activists lodged a complaint at the ILO office.
Aye Myint, a rights activist in Pegu town in central Burma, on Tuesday helped family members of an under-age boy, who was allegedly recruited into the Burmese Army, to lodge a complaint at the ILO liaison office in Rangoon.
"I met the deputy officer. She accepted the complaint and said the office will meet those of the concerned ministry to recall the child," Aye Myint said, following his meeting with the ILO's deputy liaison officer, Piyammal Pichaiwongse.
Aye Myint said Mrs. Pichaiwongse also interviewed Tin Htay, the sister of the child-soldier who met her brother at the military training camp on October 18.
"She [Pichaiwongse] recorded Tin Htay's statement and said they will do all they can to help her bring her brother back," Aye Myint added.
However, the ILO's liaison officer Steven Marshall was not immediately available for comment.
According to Tin Htay, the boy's sister, her brother fled their home in Phado town in Pegu Division, about 50 mile north of Rangoon, in June after his mother beat him for pawning his bicycle.
"After three months, we received a letter from my brother saying that he is now in a military camp," Tin Htay told Mizzima earlier.
Tin Htay and her family members then rushed off to Battalion 111 of the Ayadaw-based military training camp in Sagaing Division's Wuntho Township to meet her brother and to request the officers to allow him to quit the training.
But, Tin Htay said, the camp officers refused the request to allow her brother to leave the camp despite proving to them that he is under-age by showing his student identity card, recommendations from his school, police station and ward officials.
Tin Htay said, the officers told them that "He cannot leave the camp, as he is so near completing the four-month training course."
Following the abrupt refusal by the camp officers, desperate Tin Htay and her family members approached Aye Myint to help them lodge a complaint with the ILO.
"We submitted all the documents including the student's card, recommendations from the ward, police station and his school headmaster, to the ILO office," Aye Myint said. He expressed optimism that the boy will be freed from the camp following the ILO's intervention.
