The UN agency says that the Tigers recruited 709 children in 2003. The recruitment continued despite international criticism and an agreement between UNICEF and LTTE in March 2003. An Action Plan under the agreement provides for a mechanism administered by UNICEF to monitor the rights of children affected by war in the north-east, a mechanism for release and reintegration of underage recruits and children seeking recruitment. It also provides for education of vulnerable children and provision of essential healthcare and nutrition services and psychosocial care.
The agreement says that the monitoring and implementation of the Action Plan will be undertaken by LTTE’s Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) and the government Department of Probation and Childcare Services (DPCS). A transit centre for the reception and rehabilitation of children released by the LTTE was opened in October 2003 in Tiger-controlled Kilinochchi.
In 2003, the Tigers released only 202 child recruits. The HRC, SLMM and UNICEF have received a huge number of complaints from parents or relatives. Observers have expressed concern over the lack of efficient coordination between these agencies. According to UNICEF, the LTTE conscripted 1,722 children after the February 2002 ceasefire agreement and put 1,252 of them through intense military training. The LTTE said in a statement on 24 January that a three-member committee was studying the UNICEF report and claimed that only 10% of the people listed by the UN agency had birth certificates and that 384 were above the age of 18.
The SLMM has drawn the conclusion after investigation that only 10% of the recruitments are reported. According to the HRC, a number of children have also been abducted. The LTTE have claimed that the children join voluntarily and have sometimes produced written statements by the children. The HRC points out that under international law, the issue of voluntariness is irrelevant and children cannot be recruited into armed forces with or without their consent.
The HRC refers to the abduction of children in a school at Valaichenai in Batticaloa District on 4 and 5 October 2003. This happened a day before a project supported by UNICEF and Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) was launched in the north-east aimed at improving the care for children currently living in children’s homes as well as children at risk. Parents held a demonstration in Valaichenai town on 6 October in which children and teachers from other schools participated. The children were released after four families complained to the SLMM. HRC says that the homes of principals, teachers and parents who took part in the protest were vandalized and some of them physically assaulted.
Tiger Vavuniya political leader S Elilan says the criticism of the LTTE exposes the double standards of the international community. He accuses governments and international agencies of inaction when a large number of children were killed in deliberate bomb attacks by the Sri Lankan security forces and the death of hundreds of children as a result of the economic blockade imposed on Tamil areas of the north-east by successive Sri Lankan governments.