UN General Assembly
2000

Representative. Parents have reported that their children have been recruited. It is a serious problem. He observed that until they, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), announce to their own people that they have taken measures to prevent children below 17 years from being recruited, we cannot take their promises seriously. A respected and courageous human rights group in Sri Lanka, consisting mostly of Tamil teachers who used to teach at Jaffna University, have said in a recent report that since last May a fresh child-recruitment campaign has been launched by the Tamil Tigers. According to their report, children as young as 10 years are being forcibly conscripted, age being no consideration as long as the child was able to carry a gun. In recent days and months the international press has focused sharply on the plight of child soldiers in Sri Lanka. A few days ago Sri Lanka deposited its instrument of ratification of the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This Protocol