Recruiting child soldiers in the PKK dates back since its establishment, and photographs of Abdullah Ocalan’s presence in Lebanon’s Baqa Valley also show armed children with whom he met as a member of the PKK. In recent years, human rights organizations have pointed to and emphasizded on the issue of human rights abuses by the PKK.
While reports indicate that there are at least 3,000 child soldiers in the PKK and it is its branches, the Syrian Democratic Forces as the branch of the PKK in Syria, under the pressure of Western countries, made a symbolic move and Medya Nasreddin, one of the officials of the PKK-affiliated self-government in northern Syria, annouced to have opned a number of offices in the area to return the children kidnapped by the PKK. This group returned only 3 child soldiers that means only one person for every thousand child soldiers.
While the PKK has denied the kidnapping and presence of child soldiers in the recent years, but by releasing the three children in the picture above, it itself proved to have committed crime against the children.
The photo of the children clearly shows how old they are. Under international law, the recruitment of persons under the age of 18 at war is a war crime.
