ANSWERS TO WRITTEN PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS ON BURMA - HOUSE OF COMMONS, U.K

9 Feb 2012 Valerie Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Government of Burma on the recruitment of child soldiers into the Burmese Army. [94435]

Mr Jeremy Browne: The use of child soldiers continues to be a problem in the Burmese military and some armed ethnic groups. Many children continue to work, largely due to poverty, and there remains no code of conduct to protect working children. There is little protection under the law for how children are treated within the Burmese police justice system.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) visited Burma on 5-6 January 2012. During his visit the Foreign Secretary urged further reforms and emphasised the importance of an end to conflict, humanitarian access, political dialogue and national reconciliation.

We will continue to work closely with civil society organisations and UN agencies on children’s issues. We support the work of the International Labour Organization in highlighting the problems and need for action on child labour and underage recruitment in the military. We raised the use of children in armed conflict in Burma in the UN Security Council in November. We supported a reference in the resolutions on Burma at the Human Rights Council and UN General Assembly, calling on the Government to end the recruitment of child soldiers by the armed forces and other armed groups, to intensify measures to ensure the protection of children in armed conflict, and to intensify its co-peration with the UN in this area. The Department for International Development’s Operational Plan for 2011-15 aims to support more than 200,000 children

through primary school in Burma.