military recruitment

Tue

Mar

2016

Young and Desperate? I want you to fight my wars!

New translation available

Submitted by hannah

“Don’t join the Army.”

“Don’t do what? Don’t leave here? Don’t learn new skills?”

These are the words from the new recruitment advert from the British Army to recruit new members to its ranks. It depicts a...

Fri

Oct

French school condemned after students try out unloaded assault rifles

Submitted by antimili-youth on Fri, 30/10/2015 - 07:41

Defence ministry promises disciplinary action after Flastroff school’s ‘meet-the-army’ workshop saw pupils aged 10 and under pose with Famas rifles

France’s defence ministry has said it will take disciplinary action over a primary school “meet-the-army” workshop at which pupils aged 10 and under took part in an exercise with unloaded assault rifles.

But educational authorities, while summoning teachers to explain the incident at a village school in Flastroff, in north-eastern France, suggested it had been more the result of a surfeit of enthusiasm than anything sinister.

The workshop might have gone unnoticed but for a photograph posted on social networks showing a dozen children lying flat out like soldiers, fingers on the triggers of Famas assault rifles.

Fri

Oct

Military Classrooms? Strategy wargames played out in German schools

Submitted by antimili-youth on Fri, 30/10/2015 - 07:08

Here is a short report by Peter Oliver from RT News about the recruitment operations of the German Armed Forces, Bundeswehr, and activists resisting against this increasing flow of war propaganda in Germany.

Military Classrooms? Strategy wargames played out in German schools

Tue

Sep

Israel’s army and schools work hand in hand, say teachers

Submitted by antimili-youth on Tue, 29/09/2015 - 12:03

By Jonathan Cook, Middle East Eye

Close ties means Israeli pupils are being raised to be "good soldiers" rather than good citizens

HAIFA - The task for Israeli pupils: to foil an imminent terror attack on their school. But if they are to succeed, they must first find the clues using key words they have been learning in Arabic.

Arabic lesson plans for Israel’s Jewish schoolchildren have a strange focus.

Those matriculating in the language can rarely hold a conversation in Arabic. And almost none of the hundreds of teachers introducing Jewish children to Israel’s second language are native speakers, even though one in five of the population belong to the country’s Palestinian minority.

The reason, says Yonatan Mendel, a researcher at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, is that the teaching of Arabic in Israel’s Jewish schools is determined almost exclusively by the needs of the Israeli army.

Mon

Sep

America’s Tween Soldiers

Submitted by Gary on Mon, 14/09/2015 - 21:31

August Say, 12, holds out his arm to determine where he should stand in class in the new Dragon Leadership Corps at his middle school in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Seth Kershner, In These Times

Last year, Henry F. Moss Middle School in Bowling Green, Ohio, offered students a brand new course. And, as a headline in the local newspaper proclaimed, this was “not your traditional class.” For starters, the teacher—an army sergeant—had told the Bowling Green Daily News that one of his goals was to expose these seventh- and eighth-graders to “military values” that they could use as “building blocks” in life. To that end, students in the class earn military style ranks, engage in army-style “PT” (physical training) and each Wednesday, wear camouflage pants and boots.

This is the Moss Middle School Leadership Corps, part of the growing trend of military-style education for pre-adolescents.

Mon

Sep

New Publication: Counter-Recruitment and the Campaign to Demilitarize Public Schools

Submitted by Gary on Mon, 14/09/2015 - 20:04

Scott Harding, Seth Kershner -

Sat

Sep

Militarism Run Amok: Russians and Americans Get Their Kids Ready for War

Submitted by Gary on Sat, 12/09/2015 - 20:05

Lawrence Wittner - In 1915, a mother's protest against funneling children into war provided the theme of a new American song, "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier." Although the ballad attained great popularity, not everyone liked it. Theodore Roosevelt, a leading militarist of the era, retorted that the proper place for such women was "in a harem―and not in the United States."

If Roosevelt were still around today, a century later, he would be happy to learn that preparing children for war continues unabated.

Thu

Aug

MPs back signing of optional protocol on child soldiers

Submitted by antimili-youth on Thu, 27/08/2015 - 18:01

By Ei Ei Toe Lwin, The Myanmar Times

The Pyidaungsu Hluttaw has approved an optional international protocal which aims to keep children out of armed conflict.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs submitted a proposal to proceed with the ratification of the United Nations protocol to parliament on August 20. It was approved without objection yesterday.

The optional protocol – an addition to the Convention on the Rights of the Child – requires states to “take all feasible measures” to ensure that soldiers under the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities. They are also required to raise the voluntary recruitment age above 15 years, and cannot conscript anyone under 18. Parties to the optional protocol must also take measures to stop non-state armed groups from recruiting and using children under the age of 18 in conflicts.

Mon

Aug

National Assembly of Conscientious Objectors (ANOOC) Statement

Submitted by hannah on Mon, 17/08/2015 - 16:55

August 2015

In a country that has gone through many stages of armed conflict throughout its history, where the military has been permeating the fine threads of social relations, various women and men have decided to move forward in the belief that war is not an engine of history and development, neither a condemnation, nor a destiny which we cannot escape; it is the expression of a way of solving social conflicts, used to deflect the factors that create it, maintaining their conditions and creating better conditions in order to perpetuate itself as a naturalized social dynamic.

Mon

Aug

Establishing Policies to Restrict Military Recruiting in K-12 Schools A live online organizing workshop in three 1-hour parts

Learn how policies have been adopted in various school districts

Restrictions have included:

Fri

Jul

Anti-Isis summer camp: Schoolboys trained by Iraqi government-backed Shia militias

Submitted by antimili-youth on Fri, 31/07/2015 - 15:26

By Lizzie Dearden, The Independent

The use of teenage suicide bombers and boy soldiers by Isis is well-documented but the so-called Islamic State is not the only militant group abusing children in Iraq.

The Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a coalition of Shia militias sponsored by the Iraqi government and reportedly using American weapons, has also recruited an “unknown number” of minors.

Investigators with the UN’s children and armed conflict office reported last month that the PMF was searching for child soldiers from conflict zones across Iraq, as well as in Baghdad and Basra.

Pages

Languages

Countering Military Recruitment

WRI's new booklet, Countering Military Recruitment: Learning the lessons of counter-recruitment campaigns internationally, is out now. The booklet includes examples of campaigning against youth militarisation across different countries with the contribution of grassroot activists.

You can order a paperback version here.