Item 13 ? Rights of the Child... "Anti-Slavery International would like to call the attention of the Commission to the situation of children in Myanmar. In 1991, Myanmar acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but, today, children continue to be denied their most basic rights and freedoms, and to be subjected to the most serious human rights violations. Children are often requisitioned as forced labourers for road building, army camp maintenance, plantation work and as porters. Despite Order 1/99 prohibiting forced labour, this practice continues as reported by the ILO Liaison Office in its March 2003 report to the Governing Body [ref. GB-286/6]. Children, both girls and boys, have to performed compulsory labour to allow their parents to earn the daily income of the family. Children as young as 11 are forcibly recruited as soldiers in the Army. A Human Rights Watch report of October 2002 estimates that as many as 70,000 children are being conscripted into the armed forces. They are subject to beatings and humiliation during training and, once deployed, they must engage in combat, participate in human rights violations against civilians, and are frequently abused by their commanders..."