[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] on Wednesday accused [press release] Syria’s main Kurdish militia of violating the child soldier ban. The militia has been the main force for combating the Islamic State group within the country, and has made progress in capturing land in northern Syria. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [advocacy website] has an Optional Protocol to the Children’s Rights Convention on Children and Armed Conflict [text], which says that children under the age of 18 should not be recruited to armed groups for any reason. In 2014, the People’s Protection Unit (YPG) pledged, through the “Deed of Commitment” [advocacy backgrounder] to “demobilize all fighters under 18 within one month.” Although nearly 150 children were demobilized within that month, in the past year HRW has documented the continued use and death of child soldiers in the group.

The conflict in Syria [JURIST backgrounder] has continued for five years in a civil war based around the legitimacy of President Bashar al-Assad [BBC reports]. In August the UN reported [JURIST report] that 191,000 have died in the conflict, and that number continues to climb. Last June the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria warned [JURIST report] the UN Human Rights Council that the continuing civil war in Syria conflict has “reached a tipping point, threatening the entire region.” Last May HRW cited evidence [JURIST report] that the Syrian government was using chemical weapons on its own citizens. Last March a panel of UN human rights experts presented a report [JURIST report] that depicted the Syrian rebel practice of “execution fields” where mass killings were committed through the use of barrel bomb attacks.