ILO Convention and other treaties;¹ Work of international supervisory bodies²

Forced recruitment of minors by the armed forces/ Reference to international law to strengthen a decision based on inter-American law

A soldier shot and killed a child aged 15 who had been recruited into military service in the Paraguayan Armed Forces in 1989 while he was trying to escape from a military camp.

His family alleged that there had been a breach of his human rights and accused Paraguay of systematically recruiting children to their Armed Forces.

The Court referred to the fact that Paraguay had ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict in 2002 and established 18 as the minimum age for military service. The Court also referred to Paraguay’s obligations according to ILO Convention No. 182, Article 3, and underlined that the forced or obligatory recruitment of children for their use in armed conflict is considered slavery or a practice similar to slavery. Paraguay was ordered to pay compensation to the family of the victim, submit a public apology, develop human rights training programmes for the Armed Forces and amend the national legislation allowing the recruitment of people aged under 18 to the Armed Forces.