Colombia’s armed groups recruit children and train them in drone warfare, rights group says
Human Rights Watch said 1,500 children have been recruited since 2021, with girls and Indigenous children disproportionately targeted and some trained to fly explosive drones.
- Human Rights Watch released a report today detailing how Colombian armed groups exploit Facebook and TikTok to recruit children, with platforms failing to effectively detect or remove content glorifying armed group membership.
- Armed groups exploit poverty, social exclusion, and barriers to education to lure children with promises of money and prestige, while intermediaries paid up to US$1,000 per child facilitate recruitment.
- Data reviewed by Human Rights Watch shows at least 1,500 children have been recruited since 2021, with over 30 percent of victims being children between the ages of 10 and 14.
- The Intersectoral Commission lacks enforcement capacity to implement policies, while government efforts remain too limited in scope to match the expanding scale of the problem affecting children and adolescents.
- Human Rights Watch urged President Abelardo de la Espriella to adopt a comprehensive security policy, while recommending social media platforms conduct human rights due diligence to mitigate recruitment risks.
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Human Rights Watch does not believe that tech giants are doing enough to stop child recruitment in Colombia.
By Rocío Muñoz-Ledo, CNN en Español For a child in a rural area of Colombia, the first contact with an armed group can be reached through a phone. It can be a video on TikTok, a private message or a supposed job offer. It can also occur at school, during a sports tournament or The post Organized crime recruits more and more children in Colombia. It does so, according to a report appeared first on KVIA.
By Rocío Muñoz-Ledo, CNN en Español. For a child in rural Colombia, the first contact with an armed group can come via a phone. It could be a TikTok video, a private message, or a supposed job offer. It can also happen at school, during a sports tournament, or through another classmate. This is documented in a new Human Rights Watch report published this Monday, which exposes how armed groups are resorting to these strategies to recruit more and…
The Oenegé Human Rights Watch reported Monday that social networks Facebook and TikTok fail to detect, eliminate and prevent the dissemination of content produced by armed groups in Colombia to recruit minors and “their algorithms seem to even promote it.”
Human Rights Watch is concerned about the increasing recruitment of children by armed groups in Colombia.
Violence linked to armed conflict and drug trafficking in Colombia continues to endanger tens of thousands of children, recruited by armed groups. Social media plays a significant role in this, according to an investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW) published on Monday, August 24, which accuses Facebook and TikTok of facilitating their recruitment.
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