Almost Half the Minors Recruited by Armed Groups in 2025 Were Approached via Social Media
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During six decades of armed conflict, guerrillas and drug traffickers recruited children and adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds in Latin America.
Almost half the minors recruited by armed groups in 2025 were approached via social media
Some 44% of children and adolescents recruited by armed groups in Colombia during 2025 were approached through social media or platforms such as TikTok and Facebook, according to data from the Special Jurisdiction for Peace cited in a Human Rights Watch report published on Monday.
The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has denounced 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." Throughout six decades of armed conflict, guerrillas and drug traffickers have joined their ranks poor children and adolescents, but in recent years the use of these popular platforms …
A Human Rights Watch survey points to the role of social media algorithms in the recruitment of children by armed groups in Colombia Facebook and TikTok are unable to do so.
In recent years, the use of these popular platforms has "contributed to the drastic increase in child recruitment", according to an investigation by the international organization Read
Human Rights Watch
southamericanews.netColombia: Armed Groups Expand Child Recruitment
Click to expand Image A 17-year-old boy recruited by the 33rd Front of the EMBF, a dissident group of the demobilized FARC, operating in Colombia’s Catatumbo region near the Venezuelan border. © 2026 Federico Ríos Escobar Child recruitment by armed groups has risen sharply in Colombia in recent years; exploiting poverty, social exclusion, and lack of education to lure children with promises of money, power, and prestige, and increasingly using s…
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