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UN accuses Burma of Child military
Subject: UN accuses Burma of Child military conscription.
U.N. accuses Burma of child military conscription
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January 17, 1997
Web posted at: 1:30 p.m. EST (1830 GMT)
GENEVA (Reuter) - The United Nations
Committee on the Rights of the Child urged
Burma on Friday to end what it called
systematic, forced enrollment of children in
the country's army.
The committee called for "urgent efforts to
end child military conscription and forced use of
children as porters
for the army."
A U.N. statement said Burmese officials taking part
in a debate in
Geneva had denied the accusations and insisted they
had been
fabricated by government opponents.
On Wednesday, the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch Asia
said in
a report that Burma's children were forced to join
the army, used
as porters for troops, beaten, arrested, sexually
abused and
transferred illegally to Thailand.
The human rights group alleged that "hundreds, if
not thousands" of
children had died from beatings, exhaustion and lack
of care in
recent years because of the military regime's use of
forced labor.
[CNN News, 17 January 1997].
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