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SNP adopt #MakeIt18

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Conference notes that the UK is the only European & NATO country to recruit 16-year-olds into the armed forces, in conflict with the internationally recognised UN Rights of the Child.

Conference notes that those who join the armed forces under the age of 18 are more likely to be killed or injured in service, suffer from alcohol abuse and mental health issues than standard entry recruits.

Conference further notes that over three-quarters of UK citizens support an increase in the armed forces recruitment age to 18 and that such an increase in the recruitment age is supported by a range of organisations including the Children & Young Person’s Commissioner of Scotland, the Educational Institute of Scotland, Children in Scotland and the Church of Scotland.

Conference calls upon the UK Government to work towards raising the minimum armed forces recruitment age from 16 to 18 for all roles that require combat training in line with international standards and affirms that this will form a part of the SNP’s Defence Policy for an independent Scotland.

The resolution was passed without the amendment that had been put forward by the SNP leadership, which would effectively maintained the status quo.

Some excellent speeches were made, particularly by members of Young Scots for Independence, the youth wing of SNP who have done so much to progress this issue.… Read more

From the classroom to the frontline – schools must be careful what they teach kids about the army

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This article by Jonathan Parry. Lecturer in Global Ethics at the University of Birmingham, explores the dangers involved in miltary activity in schools and for the youngest recruits. It emphasises the moral risks and the ‘moral exploitation’ involved.

From the article:

Kill or be killed

But as well as the risk of death and injury, I think we should pay attention to a less obvious risk that is impose on these soldiers – and that is the moral risk of engaging in serious wrongdoing. As General Sir Michael Rose puts it:

No other group in society is required either to kill other human beings, or expressly sacrifice themselves for the nation.

Since committing unjustified homicide is a terrible stain on a person’s life – as well as a cause of psychological harm – we should worry about the risks of young people becoming killers. And not just the risk of being killed.

Philosophers have become increasingly interested in military ethics over the last two decades – with many arguing that killing in war should be subject to the same ethical standards as killing in other areas of life. An important implication of this view is that there is nothing morally special about war, and that fighting in unjustified wars typically involves grave moral wrongdoing.… Read more

Academics: Armed forces are no place for 16-year-olds

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A letter to the Guardian (12/09/17) from more than 50 academics has called for the age of recruitment ot the UK armed forces to be raised to 18. It backs a conference motion from SNP Youth in support of this.

“The UK is one of only 19 countries worldwide to recruit 16-year-olds. Other countries that do so include North Korea, Iran and Syria. No other EU or Nato member state recruits 16-year-olds. Some 2,250 minors were recruited into the armed forces in the past 12 months. The army alone enlisted 1,000 16-year-olds. This makes 16-year-olds the single biggest age group entering the army. The army states that it uses the recruitment of minors as “an opportunity to mitigate standard entry shortfalls, particularly for the infantry”. This is worrying because the infantry has the highest fatality and injury rate of any branch of the armed forces. Child Soldiers International has found that soldiers who enlisted at 16 were twice as likely to die in Afghanistan as those who enlisted aged 18 or above.”

An accompanying article notes that:

“SNP youth activists have said members of the party’s defence team at Westminster had been resistant to the idea and obstructive when they first called for the SNP to support an outright ban on the recruitment of minors.”… Read more

British Army targets working class kids

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From The Guardian

British army is targeting working-class young people, report shows

Recruitment campaign’s audience is 16- to 24-year-old C2DEs despite MoD’s claim of targeting all socio-economic backgrounds, internal document shows

The British army is specifically targeting young people from working-class backgrounds in a glossy recruitment campaign despite claiming to aim advertising at all socio-economic backgrounds, an internal briefing document seen by the Guardian reveals.

A briefing document on the This Is Belonging campaign spells out that the key audience is 16- to 24-year-old “C2DEs” – marketing speak for the lowest three social and economic groups.

The document also makes it clear that while the campaign is UK-wide, there are “up-weights” to cities in northern England including Manchester and Sheffield and to Birmingham, Belfast and Cardiff.

Army chiefs insist they do not specifically target poorer people from deprived areas, but seek out talented and motivated youngsters of all social classes from across the country. However, the charity Child Soldiers International, which obtained the briefing document, said the strategy set out in them clearly showed this was not true.

Rachel Taylor, the charity’s director of programmes, said: “What’s very clear from the document is that the army is deliberately and strategically targeting young people from deprived backgrounds who have limited options in life.… Read more

The First Ambush: Effects of army training and employment

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A new report out today from Veterans For Peace UK details how the Army’s training process has a ‘forceful impact’ on attitudes, health, and behaviour even before recruits are sent to war.

The findings show that military training and culture combine with pre-existing issues (such as a childhood history of anti-social behaviour) to increase the risk of violence and alcohol misuse (details below). Traumatic war experiences further exacerbate the problem.

The report explains that the main purpose of army training is to mould young civilians as soldiers who will follow orders by reflex and kill on demand. It demands unquestioning obedience, stimulates aggression and antagonism, overpowers a healthy person’s inhibition to killing, and dehumanises the opponent in the recruit’s imagination. Recruits are taught that stressful situations are overcome through dominance.

The First Ambush? Effects of army training and employment (70pp) draws on veterans’ testimony and around 200 studies, mainly from the UK and US, to explore the effects of army employment on recruits, particularly during initial training.

Also, see our article Stripping the Civilian – how army training isolates, disorientates and dominates recruits
… Read more

Hidden in full sight: sex abuse covered up by cadet forces

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BBC Panorama has uncovered evidence of repeated cover-ups of historical sex abuse in Britain’s cadet forces.

Victims have spoken for the first time of senior cadet leaders covering up complaints, and pressurising families against going to the police.

Overseen by the Ministry of Defence, the cadets is one of the UK’s largest youth bodies with 130,000 members.

The MoD has paid more than £2m to cadet abuse victims, and says it has “robust procedures in place to protect cadets”.

According to Freedom of Information requests, in the last five years 363 sexual abuse allegations – both historical and current – have been made across the UK for the Army, Air and Sea Cadets.

Some 282 cases have been referred to the police and 99 volunteers have been dismissed.… Read more

The militarisation of schools

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The UK is one of few countries that allow minors to enlist. Despite calls to cease the recruitment of under-18s the Army is digging in to hold its ground.

Two contrasting videos about life in the British Army are doing the rounds, both released this month. In the first, an Army recruitment advertisement, soldiers are trudging through miserable arctic conditions when one of them starts singing the Dirty Dancing song “(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life”. Cue much ribbing and laughter from his comrades, instantly lightening the mood of their dreary slog through the snow.

In the second video, released by campaign group Child Soldiers International (CSI), 27-year-old veteran Wayne Sharrocks talks about his experiences training and serving with the Army in Afghanistan, where he was wounded following an IED explosion. Against another backdrop of soldiers marching through snow, Sharrocks describes how members of his platoon were encouraged to beat up a comrade believed to be underperforming in a training exercise. “I think he tried to kill himself in the toilets at some point,” Sharrocks says to camera.

Sharrocks joined the Army in 2006, aged 17. He left in 2013 and has since suffered mental health problems.… Read more

Enlisting at 16: the other side of the story

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This series of 2-minute films by Child Soldiers International give a powerful insight into the reality of signing up as a young recruit, how training brutalises young soldiers and the long-term harmful effects of training and combat.

See more info here: https://www.child-soldiers.org/dontenlistat16

Veterans for Peace UK are handing in a letter to the MoD today calling for an end the recruitment of children aged 16 and 17 into the British.… Read more

Army defies child rights campaigners, intensifies intake of 16-year-olds for riskiest roles

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Figures released today reveal that the British Army has increased its intake of 16-year-olds in the past 12 months, defying calls from the UN, children’s rights organisations and others campaigning for an end to the recruitment of minors.

  • 16-year-old recruits outnumber any other age group and are made to serve 50 per cent longer than adults
  • Courts rule MoD has unlimited powers to discriminate against young recruits

In the 12 months to 30 September 2016, the Army enlisted 1,000 16-year-olds[1] (up from 870 in the previous 12 months)[2], accounting for 13 per cent of total enlisted intake. This makes 16-year-olds the single biggest age group entering the Army, for the first time since 2012. The overall intake of minors as a percentage of enlisted recruits rose to 24.1 per cent (up from 22.5 per cent in the previous period), while intake of adults decreased.

The Army’s recruitment policies state that it uses recruitment of minors as ‘an opportunity to mitigate Standard Entry [adult] shortfalls, particularly for the Infantry’.[3] The Infantry has the highest fatality and injury rate of any major branch of the armed forces, with infantrymen in Afghanistan seven times more likely to be killed than personnel in the rest of the British armed forces.… Read more

Parliament considers military visits to schools petition

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Members of Holyrood’s Public Petitions Committee asked for views at an initial hearing in September. Local authorities, the Scottish Government, the MoD and others then submitted responses.

The Scottish Youth Parliament and Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner, Tam Baillie, were particularly supportive of the petition.

The SYP found that the majority of young people consulted ‘agreed that guidance should be developed’ and also ‘felt that there should be public monitoring of visits to schools’.

Mr Baillie said: ‘There should be clear national guidance about the content of such visits and when and where they are to be conducted’.

All the responses, including the reply from ForcesWatch and Quakers in Scotland (1), can be found here:

http://www.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/armedforcesvisitstoschools

(See Petitioner Letter of 11 November for our final response).

A 2014 ForcesWatch report highlighted how over four-fifths of state secondary schools in Scotland were visited by the armed forces during a two year period. (2)

In some areas every school was visited, and some as many as 20 times or more over a two year period. Many of the visits were explicitly about careers in the armed forces.

The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament Education and Culture Committee to hold an inquiry into armed forces visits, and for the Scottish Government and local authorities to:

  • Produce guidance for local authorities and schools on how visits by the armed forces should be conducted.
… Read more