New Delhi - Myo Aung (name changed) had barely completed three months of military training when family members came to collect him from an army camp in which he unfortunately landed after straying away from home more than three months ago.

The look in his eyes as he spoke with his elder sister, who had come to talk with him and seek permission for him to quit the military, expressed profound regret at the situation fate had dealt him and a desire to reform his life.

But it was too late.

Officers from Battalion 111 of the Ayadaw-based military training camp in Sagaing Division's Wuntho Township said, "He [Myo Aung] cannot leave the camp, as he is so near completing the four months training."

Desperate family members pled with the officers to rethink their position, but their attempts only fell on deaf ears. They even produced his student card and recommendations from the local ward authorities, police station and his school head master, to prove that the boy was only 15 years old – but to no avail.

Instead, Tin Htay, a sister of Myo Aung who talked with a captain and sergeant, told how the officers curtly responded, "We cannot hand him back to you."

Myo Aung, who was studying in the ninth-standard at Phado Village High School in Kyauktagar Township of Pegu Division, left his home in June after his mother beat him for putting his bicycle in a pawn shop, Tin Htay explained.

But months later, on October 18, family members learned that he had landed in a military training camp for new recruits in Central Burma's Sagaing Division, about 400 miles north of his hometown.

Tin Htay said her brother, after wandering away from home, met with a soldier from the military training camp of Battalion 111 who asked him to join the training to become a soldier. Myo Aung took an interest and followed him, thinking it would be a chance for him to prove his mother and other family members that he could stand on his own two feet.

How wrong he would be.

"My brother told me of his unhappiness in remaining in the camp. But he said he feared to run away as they [the Army] would hunt him down, even at our house," Tin Htay said in a desperate tone.

"My brother said if he is caught deserting the camp he will be beaten to death," she said, adding that they have since given up on persuading the camp officers.

But, she said, they have not quit in their determination to get her brother out of the camp, and have approached Aye Myint, a labor rights activist in the town of Pegu, requesting him to help them submit a complaint to the International Labor Organization (ILO), which has a liaison office in Rangoon.

Aye Myint, who has been working to promote labor rights, said he agreed to submit the case to the ILO office in Rangoon.

"In fact, I have already drafted all the documents and will be submitting the complaint to the ILO on Friday," Aye Myint said.

While it remains unknown whether the complaint to the ILO liaison office will get Myo Aung out of the military camp, Aye Myint said Myo Aung's case was not the first such story he had heard.

He said, young boys in Burma often find themselves unintentionally in military camps, and in most cases find it difficult to quit though they no longer want to serve. This holds true even if, at the behest of their family, they are proven to be under-aged.

"In the past, through the help of the ILO liaison officer, we were able to withdraw about 15 boys from military camps," Aye Myint explained.

While it was not possible for the liaison officer to directly talk to camp commanders or officers and ask them to allow boys to quit, the liaison officer in Rangoon, who has in the past raised particular cases with high-ranking Burmese officials, has played a crucial role in gaining the release of some boys.

Burma's military rulers in early 2007 allowed the ILO to appoint a liaison officer and to establish a mechanism to report on forced labor cases.

While with the help of Aye Myint and the ILO liaison office in Rangoon, Tin Htay and her parents can keep their hope alive, it is not a lucky story for many young Burmese boys who end up in the military camps.

According to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report in 2002, there are at least 70,000 child soldiers deployed in Burma, including those among both the Burmese Army and ethnic armed forces.

However, David Scott Mathieson, HRW's Burma consultant, said the figures are now largely irrelevant as they have not been updated in some time. He said the lack of reliable statistical information is basically due to the difficulties of getting information from Burma, whose rulers have strictly blocked the flow of information.

"Though we cannot confirm it, I think the use of child soldiers by the Burmese junta has remained more or less the same," said Mathieson, adding that the mode of recruiting child soldiers has largely become more informal in an attempt to avoid the glare of the media.

For its part, the junta on January 5, 2004, announced the establishment of the 'Committee for Prevention of Military Recruitment of Underage Children' after attracting severe international criticism on the use of child soldiers, and claimed that the committee had effectively prevented children being recruited into the military.

But Mathieson, whose organization, HRW, released a report entitled 'Sold to be Soldiers' in 2007, said the committee has done little or nothing to prevent the recruitment of children into the military and the practice of child soldiers in Burma remains almost the same.

"I don't think the committee has done anything," he remarked.

Against this grim backdrop, Tin Htay said she worries that she will never see her brother come out of the camp to live a normal civilian live.

"But," she added, "I still hope my brother will come back to us again."