Maung Aung Myo Thant, 15-years-old, was kidnapped while on his way home from his workplace in Rangoon last July and forced to join the National army.
He was locked up for two days in the family quarters of a soldiers recruitment camp and thereafter transferred to the Taungdwinggyi Soldiers Training School. He received basic military trainings at the school led by Colonel Thein Lwin.
While at the school he became ill and was wrongly diagnosed. As a result of which the injection he was given blinded him. An army officer took him back to his home in Central Myanmar on the 3rd of December, 6 months after his kidnapping. Local people tried to treat him with an eye specialist but in vain.
Maung Kyaw Thet Lwin, also a 15-year-old boy, who was working in Rangoon was kidnapped by the army while on his way home at a bus station and forced to join the army. His parents learnt only recently that he had been sent off to the Phaunggyi Training School to receive military training. They were, however, not allowed to see their son on reaching the training school.
With children as young as 11-years old working as child labourers in Rangoon, kidnapping of children by the army at bus stations, ports and train stations is becoming everyday practice, reported the Democratic Voice of Burma.
The violations that children face each day of their lives in Myanmar is becoming more and more evident but the international community has yet to pressurize the military regime in Myanmar to put an end to these violations.
[This article is sourced from the Democratic Voice of Burma]