Child Soldiers International

“Catch-22”: Campaigners launch legal battle with MoD over recruitment of minors

Campaigners lodge claim for judicial review of “Catch-22” rules, which force youngest recruits to serve for longest. New poll: public support for raising armed forces’ enlistment age to 18 continues to grow.

The British Army frontline: women and children first

Child Soldiers International: We now face the prospect of 16 year old girls joining the army in combat roles.

Your country needs your children – MoD targets teens to fix recruitment crisis

Amid ongoing controversy around the MoD’s struggling recruitment campaigns for the armed forces, figures published this week reveal that the Army has resorted to increasing numbers of 16-year-olds in an attempt to fix the recruitment shortfall.

UK under fire for recruiting an ‘army of children’

MoD finds itself in the company of countries such as North Korea over use of teenage soldiers

FUTURE ARMY 2020: Defence Committee increases pressure to MoD to raise enlistment age to 18

The Defence Select Committee has increased the pressure on the MoD to stop enlisting minors, in a report published today.

Welsh bishops urge army to raise enlistment age to 18

The Ministry of Defence has come under pressure from the Church in Wales and campaign group Child Soldiers International which is calling for an end to recruitment of under-18s to the Army

Bishops attack army on recruitment of minor while teen enlistment figures plummet

Recruitment of 16-year-olds down 40% on previous year; former Armed Forces minister says “Time is right” to review recruitment age

Open letter to Minister of State for the Armed Forces on armed forces recruitment age

"We call for the minimum recruitment age to be returned to 18 years. This would be a fitting memorial to those thousands who, whether unlawfully recruited as minors during the First World War or recruited to fight in other conflicts, were exposed to death, injury and trauma that no child should ever experience."

High drop out rate and imprisonment of teenage soldiers calls MoD policy into question

High drop-out rate of teenage soldiers hides unfair detention of some young recruits detained in military prisons for attempting to leave