The military this week will discharge a 17-year-old boy currently fighting on the frontline in Rakhine state, Myanmar Now has learned.
Aung Naing Win, from the Ayeyarwaddy region’s Pyapon township, was recruited at the age of 16 earlier this year in Ye township, Mon state.
Captain Chit Ko Ko of the No. 9 military training school in Mon state’s Thaton township, where Aung Naing Win began his military training, called the boy’s mother late on 13 December to tell her about the discharge, she told Myanmar Now.
“We were told to go pick up our son in the next two or three days,” Aye Aye Naing said.
Chit Ko Ko declined to comment but suggested contacting Light Infantry Division (LID) 542 in Kyaukphyu township, Rakhine state, where Aung Naing Win is currently.
Myanmar Now was unable to reach LID 542 captain Wai Lin. over the weekend.
Aung Naing Win lived with his parents in Kha Pyat village, in the Daw Nyein village tract of Pyapon township, in the Ayeyarwaddy region.
He was travelling with his uncle near Ye township, in Mon State, where on 24 April he went missing.
His parents reported the disappearance at a Ye township police station then spent over a month searching the area for Aung Naing Win.
They didn’t learn what happened to their son until 26 September, when Aung Naing Win was able to contact them by phone.
On April 24, a motorcycle taxi driver promised him a job but took him to the Thanbyuzayat military compound, Aye Aye Naing told Myanmar Now. After spending one night there he was sent to a recruitment centre in Mawlamyine, then to the training centre near Thaton township.
Aung Naing Win told Myanmar Now he was given a national identity card with a 1999 birthdate.
Official documents provided by his parents list his birthday as 12 May 2002.
Two days after hearing from their son, Aung Naing Win’s parents travelled to the training centre, where they learned his training would be ending within a month.
They filed a formal complaint with the military explaining that their son is underage and asking that he be allowed to resign after training, Aye Aye Naing said. But when his training was completed, the military sent Aung Naing Win to the LID in Kyaukphyu.
Aung Naing Win was then told he was being transferred to another training academy, he told Myanmar Now, but soon realized he’d actually been sent to the frontline in Minbya—a township at the centre of ongoing and intense armed conflict between the Myanmar military and the rebel Arakan Army.
He would like to go home, he told Myanmar Now.
His parents have spent the last two months appealing to the military, the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, and the International Labour Organization’s Yangon office for help, they said.
“We are anxious and full of dread. We can’t eat or sleep,” Aye Aye Naing said.
His father, Ko Ko Win, brought documentation of Aung Naing Win’s age to military officers in Kyaukphyu when he went to see his son in November.
“We were told we couldn’t have our son back until they got permission from above,” he said. “They wouldn’t let him go anywhere.”
On 12 December, Aung Naing Win told Myanmar Now by phone he is currently fighting on the Minbya frontline.
Warrant officer Tun Thein confirmed to Myanmar Now that private Aung Naing Win, ID number Ta/556979, is with the unit but has been moved to a command headquarter in Taunggok township, Rakhine state.
“As far as I know, Aung Naing Win is not on the frontline anymore,” he said.
ILO deputy liaison officer Piyamal Pichaiwongse told Myanmar Now Aung Naing Win’s situation constitutes a case of forced labour and she would be submitting it to the government as such.
“Underage recruitment is illegal, and it does not matter if he or his parents give consent,” she told Myanmar Now. “Anyone recruited underage is entitled to be discharged immediately”.
Ko Ko Win also submitted a complaint to the Mon State Department of Relief and Resettlement on 9 December.
In June 2012 the government signed an agreement with the United Nations to prevent the use of children in the military. Since then, the military has released 987 child soldiers and punished 448 military officers and other ranks for underage recruitment, according to the ILO.
Translated from Burmese by Han Htoo Aung
