Armed Groups and International Legitimacy: Child Soldiers in Intra-State Wars by William Plowright

Author:William Plowright [Plowright, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, International, General, Peace, Political Science, Political Freedom, Law, Security (National & International)
ISBN: 9781000351903
Google: RK0PEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 55401957
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Child soldiers and the United Wa State Army

Operating far outside the control of the regime, and in firm control of various illicit trade networks, there is little doubt that the UWSA continues to use child soldiers. The use of child soldiers by the UWSA has been well documented in recent decades, and it is clear that the UWSA purposefully recruits large numbers of children, and that many underage individuals are used as fighters as well as in the production and trafficking of narcotics.100 The UWSA is known to conscript one soldier from each family, and should there be no man of fighting age, a child will be taken instead. A Japanese journalist witnessed the UWSA taking a 7-year-old girl to fight when no older male was available (2002, 131). A more recent study concluded that the UWSA has within its ranks as many as 2,000 child soldiers, making it the greatest violator of the norm other than the Tatmadaw (Chen 2014, 22). UWSA is listed in the Secretary General’s Annual Reports in 2012 through to 2015.101

Although Geneva Call attempted to construct a dialogue with the UWSA on the subject of child soldiers, these were rebuffed by the UWSA and no engagement or negotiation towards signing a Deed of Commitment was conducted. Quite the opposite; apart from its allies in the narcotics trade and its Chinese sponsor, the UWSA has refrained from contact with not only the Myanmar regime, but also other armed groups (Boh Ze Kai 2016). Representatives of the UNFC expressed concern about the UWSA’s refusal to take part in talks with them.102 These signals are anything but esoteric; the UWSA has made it clear that it is indifferent to the norm and is not going to engage with international actors on the subject, or on other aspects of international humanitarian law (IHL). As such, the UWSA as a group both winning and without domestic support has not sought to engage with the norm, and refrains even from cheap talk on the subject, ignoring it altogether. Its primary audience is its state sponsors and not domestic audiences or transnational advocacy networks.

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