What force? The article you provided says recruitment, not force. They are literally telling these kids that we can help support you if you help us fight these invaders. True, they are young. But the US literally has similar recruitment tactics for the poor and the desperate as well. If you’re joining some kind of military organization, you’re either patriotic or desperate (usually).
Also, survival is a necessity. So yes, it is necessary. Otherwise, these kids would go play soccer instead of picking up a gun.
"In 2022, the Houthis signed an action plan with the UN to end grave violations against children, including the recruitment and use of children in their forces, and committed to releasing all children from their forces within six months.
Tawfik al-Hamidi, the president of SAM, told Human Rights Watch that the Houthis use their government institutions in their efforts to recruit children, including the Ministries of Education, Interior, and Defense. “All of them are working together and coordinate to mobilize children and recruit them,” he said.
Another activist, who works as a human rights researcher, said that “[recruitment] activities in schools have increased massively [since October 7], including through the school scouts. They take students from schools to their culture centers where they lecture children about the Jihad and send them to military camps and front lines.”
By leveraging official institutions, including schools, the Houthis have managed to take advantage of a far broader swathe of children. The UN secretary-general has also reported on the Houthis’ use of educational facilities for military purposes."
And what happened in 2023 that made the Houthi’s much more active and aggressive? What’s Saudi Arabia doing to Yemen with US made weapons currently? If you and your neighbors are being massacred indiscriminately simply because you’re the wrong ethnicity, it’s not a stretch to think you would choose to pick up a gun and fight.
Definitely not a stretch for adults to pick up weapons and fight, but what they’re doing to the kids by propagandizing them through religious indoctrination is entirely a different matter.
This is why the UN required them to stop using kids, which they agreed to in 2022…
No happy child willingly becomes a soldier. They’re recruiting children who have known nothing but violence their entire lives. This is what people mean when they say people are radicalized due to the wars and suffering they’ve endured. Where do you think these militia groups come from? People who are happy and carefree? Or people who have had violence and oppression inflicted on them their whole lives and feel the need to fight back? This isn’t the result of some kind of propaganda campaign like you claim it is. This is people fighting back against systemic oppression and violence they’ve been enduring for decades.
“Human rights law declares 18 as the minimum legal age for recruitment and use of children in hostilities. Recruiting and using children under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited under international humanitarian law – treaty and custom – and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court. Parties to conflict that recruit and use children are listed by the Secretary-General in the annexes of his annual report on children and armed conflict.”
You’re not saying anything wrong. You’ll get no argument from me if you say child soldiers are bad.You’re just sidestepping my point. Which is that the existence of child soldiers is due to the inhumane conditions foreign powers like the US have created in that part of the world.
No, the existence of child soldiers is due to illegal indoctrination and recruitment efforts. That’s the entire purpose of thoe Jihadi “schools” run by the Houthi.
They are literally telling these kids that we can help support you if you help us fight these invaders.
Yes. They are manipulating people who’s brains are not developed enough to make rational decisions like that. Which is why it is a war crime, a human rights violation, and not morally defensible.
You’re applying a very generous use of the word manipulate here, IMO. Yes, it’s bad but the alternative is to either die by missile’s or starvation. What would you choose?
No, I am not. Maybe you do not have experience with children. Telling them “fight for us and we’ll give you stuff” is manipulating them. They do not understand the consequences of their actions. That’s why it’s illegal to convince them to have sex with you in most countries.
If someone came to a Houthi child and offered them everything they needed in exchange for sex, I assume you would be against that. And rightfully so.
I would definitely be against that. But a more accurate analogy would be if the kid ended up joining some kids group where they all prostitute themselves and some are just a bit older because they were able to survive the harsh situation. Would you not want to go against the people who made the situation where a group of kids are forced to do such things? These people have been in a civil war for a decade that has been perpetuated by western nations to re-install a leader more sympathetic to them, they’re all in the same boat.
I would want to go against both the people who made the conditions possible and the people directly hurting the children. Many people here don’t seem to think the latter should be done.
You’re not wrong for being angry and bitter about the situation. Children should be allowed to be children, I’ll never argue against that. A lot of the Houthi’s grew up with the oppression that made the civil war possible and necessary along with the civil war itself that is being continued by foreign powers. They were children too and they grew up in this environment. They are living the only way they know how.
I’m sorry… are you saying that it is necessary for them to force children to die in battle?
What force? The article you provided says recruitment, not force. They are literally telling these kids that we can help support you if you help us fight these invaders. True, they are young. But the US literally has similar recruitment tactics for the poor and the desperate as well. If you’re joining some kind of military organization, you’re either patriotic or desperate (usually).
Also, survival is a necessity. So yes, it is necessary. Otherwise, these kids would go play soccer instead of picking up a gun.
Unfortunately, all of that goes against what they agreed to do in 2022:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/13/yemen-houthis-recruit-more-child-soldiers-october-7
"In 2022, the Houthis signed an action plan with the UN to end grave violations against children, including the recruitment and use of children in their forces, and committed to releasing all children from their forces within six months.
Tawfik al-Hamidi, the president of SAM, told Human Rights Watch that the Houthis use their government institutions in their efforts to recruit children, including the Ministries of Education, Interior, and Defense. “All of them are working together and coordinate to mobilize children and recruit them,” he said.
Another activist, who works as a human rights researcher, said that “[recruitment] activities in schools have increased massively [since October 7], including through the school scouts. They take students from schools to their culture centers where they lecture children about the Jihad and send them to military camps and front lines.”
By leveraging official institutions, including schools, the Houthis have managed to take advantage of a far broader swathe of children. The UN secretary-general has also reported on the Houthis’ use of educational facilities for military purposes."
And what happened in 2023 that made the Houthi’s much more active and aggressive? What’s Saudi Arabia doing to Yemen with US made weapons currently? If you and your neighbors are being massacred indiscriminately simply because you’re the wrong ethnicity, it’s not a stretch to think you would choose to pick up a gun and fight.
Definitely not a stretch for adults to pick up weapons and fight, but what they’re doing to the kids by propagandizing them through religious indoctrination is entirely a different matter.
This is why the UN required them to stop using kids, which they agreed to in 2022…
https://youtu.be/angi1vwUkQc
No happy child willingly becomes a soldier. They’re recruiting children who have known nothing but violence their entire lives. This is what people mean when they say people are radicalized due to the wars and suffering they’ve endured. Where do you think these militia groups come from? People who are happy and carefree? Or people who have had violence and oppression inflicted on them their whole lives and feel the need to fight back? This isn’t the result of some kind of propaganda campaign like you claim it is. This is people fighting back against systemic oppression and violence they’ve been enduring for decades.
No child, happy or otherwise, legally becomes a soldier.
https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/six-grave-violations/child-soldiers/
“Human rights law declares 18 as the minimum legal age for recruitment and use of children in hostilities. Recruiting and using children under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited under international humanitarian law – treaty and custom – and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court. Parties to conflict that recruit and use children are listed by the Secretary-General in the annexes of his annual report on children and armed conflict.”
You’re not saying anything wrong. You’ll get no argument from me if you say child soldiers are bad.You’re just sidestepping my point. Which is that the existence of child soldiers is due to the inhumane conditions foreign powers like the US have created in that part of the world.
No, the existence of child soldiers is due to illegal indoctrination and recruitment efforts. That’s the entire purpose of thoe Jihadi “schools” run by the Houthi.
https://www.memri.org/reports/houthi-summer-camps-children-teach-jihad-sake-allah-hatred-west
https://sanaacenter.org/ypf/curriculum-changes-to-mold-the-jihadis-of-tomorrow/
Kids aren’t signing up for this, they’re bullied and brainwashed into it, and any legitimate military force would reject them.
I provided multiple articles.
Yes. They are manipulating people who’s brains are not developed enough to make rational decisions like that. Which is why it is a war crime, a human rights violation, and not morally defensible.
I was referencing the article from this comment.
You’re applying a very generous use of the word manipulate here, IMO. Yes, it’s bad but the alternative is to either die by missile’s or starvation. What would you choose?
No, I am not. Maybe you do not have experience with children. Telling them “fight for us and we’ll give you stuff” is manipulating them. They do not understand the consequences of their actions. That’s why it’s illegal to convince them to have sex with you in most countries.
If someone came to a Houthi child and offered them everything they needed in exchange for sex, I assume you would be against that. And rightfully so.
I would definitely be against that. But a more accurate analogy would be if the kid ended up joining some kids group where they all prostitute themselves and some are just a bit older because they were able to survive the harsh situation. Would you not want to go against the people who made the situation where a group of kids are forced to do such things? These people have been in a civil war for a decade that has been perpetuated by western nations to re-install a leader more sympathetic to them, they’re all in the same boat.
I would want to go against both the people who made the conditions possible and the people directly hurting the children. Many people here don’t seem to think the latter should be done.
You’re not wrong for being angry and bitter about the situation. Children should be allowed to be children, I’ll never argue against that. A lot of the Houthi’s grew up with the oppression that made the civil war possible and necessary along with the civil war itself that is being continued by foreign powers. They were children too and they grew up in this environment. They are living the only way they know how.
I’m pretty sure they know how to tell a child not to take a gun from them.