In another incident of child abuse, the PKK terrorist organization's Syrian offshoot, the YPG, kidnapped a 13-year-old girl in Aleppo to recruit her into their ranks, according to local sources.
A girl identified only by her initials, H.S., was abducted on March 11 from the Sheik Maqsood district of downtown Aleppo, a written statement from the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said Monday, noting that the YPG continues detaining children to be used as militants.
H.S., originally from Afrin, was taken to a bunker belonging to the terrorist group in the city, which is currently controlled by PKK/YPG terrorists, and not allowed to speak with her family, SNHR said.
The PKK/YPG usually takes the children it kidnapped or detained to terrorist camps for armed training. The use of children as armed combatants is expressly forbidden under international humanitarian law and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
YPG terrorists also do not allow forcibly recruited children to contact their families.
The terrorists are known to bring the children to their base at Mount Qandil in northern Iraq where the organization becomes their new family after their ties to their families are severed at an early age.
The PKK has been training teenage children to fight in northern Syria under the guise of “mandatory military service” for years, two other Turkish experts told Anadolu Agency (AA) in January.
“Terrorist groups reach out to children through various platforms and brainwash them,” explained the expert, adding that "later, these children are ripped away from their families and trained to be used in whatever way the organization wants.”
According to the expert, these children aren’t raised as just “fighters” by the terrorists. The organization needs children for its continuity and specifically uses adolescents between the ages of 13-18.
The expert cited international reports highlighting that the PKK has abducted and used at least 20,000 children in its operations since its foundation. “Kidnapping children up to the mountains is human trafficking and child abuse per international laws.”
He also revealed the terrorist group used women and young girls to gather more men into their network. The PKK doesn’t restrict itself to rural areas and populates its ranks with children from cities as well, like H.S. It persuades them into "going up to the mountains" through adults who are actively working in their urban branches since "compared to adults, children are more easily canalized into the organization.”
The expert drew attention to the general lack of reactions to “the PKK’s child abuse” and argued the United States and Europe “enabled” it by defining the PKK and its offshoots as “so-called ‘freedom’ movements.”
The PKK is recognized as a terrorist group in the U.S. and the European Union alongside Türkiye. Since the 1980s, it has waged a bloody campaign against the country, massacring thousands of security personnel and civilians, including women and children. It has also evolved into a threat to the region's stability as it expanded its activities into northern Syria and Iraq across Türkiye’s borders.
While recognizing the PKK as a terrorist group, some Western countries have refused to recognize its link to the YPG, but its child recruits being taken from northern Syria to the PKK base in northern Iraq is yet another piece of evidence that the two terrorist groups are in fact the same.
While working to eradicate all terrorist elements both at home and across its borders through pinpoint operations like Euphrates-Shield (2016), Olive Branch (2018), Spring Peace (2019), and most recently, Claw-Sword (2022), Turkish security forces, along with the gendarmerie, lead persuasion efforts to reduce the PKK’s ranks and entirely obliterate its influence in the region.
A total of 124 terrorists laid down their arms and surrendered to Turkish forces in 2022, the recent figures revealed.
