US Removes Pakistan From Child Soldiers Recruitment List

The United States of America (US) has removed Pakistan from the watch list of the countries involved in the recruitment of child soldiers.

According to the details, Pakistan was put on the Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA) List in 2021 and the report published in 2021 claimed that the country had furnished “material support to non-state armed groups that recruited and used child soldiers”.

The report detailed that the Government of Pakistan had failed to report investigating, prosecuting, or convicting the elements involved in the offense of recruiting child soldiers in 2021, and had demanded that the country “cease support for non-state armed groups that recruit and/or use child soldiers”.

Prior to this, the US State Department had observed in April 2019 that the Pakistan Army had declared that it would bring under the control of the government 30,000 madrassas, some of which were from where non-state armed groups would forcibly recruit child soldiers.

The other countries on the CSPA List this year are Afghanistan, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Congo, Somalia, Mali, Myanmar, Russia, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Venezuela.

Consequences of Being on the CSPA list

The CSPA bars international assistance to the governments of the countries that are on its list under the following:

• International Military Education and Training
• Foreign Military Financing
• Excess Defence Articles
• Peacekeeping Operations

However, it makes exceptions for some of the programs conducted under the Peacekeeping Operations Authority.

The CSPA also prohibits such governments from receiving licenses for the direct commercial sales of military equipment to such governments.

Pakistan Removed from Human Trafficking Watch List

In another similar development on Tuesday, US State Department upgraded the list of countries that fail to take sufficient measures against human trafficking and removed Pakistan from it.