Presentation of Military Training for Children Under the Title “Targeted Summer”

Basij bases and mosques have considered a plan for “military training for children” under the title “Targeted Summer.”

According to a report by the Hrana human rights website, a summer program under the supervision of the Basij Organization at Imam Zaman Mosque in the Khaniabad neighborhood located in Tehran’s District 19 has been titled as an educational program for military training of children.

Numerous mosques and bases throughout the country have planned such programs for children under the pretext of the approaching summer holidays. The planning of this scheme has taken place while the Islamic Republic government has signed and committed to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits the use of children in military affairs, including training.

According to statements from one of the trustees of the aforementioned mosque, these children, numbering in the dozens, are mostly students from third grade elementary through eighth grade middle school by age. Additionally, according to informed residents in the area, the Imam Zaman Basij resistance bases, under the direct supervision of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, by installing promotional banners in schools related to military courses within educational environments, encourage children under 18 years of age to participate in these classes.

An informed source also told Hrana: “In continuation of these organized measures, students are assigned to participate in military theory courses, lectures, watching war films, and also reviewing religious and ideological books, and finally these children are transferred to shooting ranges to undergo military practical courses and are trained as ‘child-soldiers.'”

The use of children in military operations, as soldiers no less, began during the Iran-Iraq War and has continued to this day. Additionally, in nationwide protests aimed at suppressing people, many children have been exploited by Basij bases to be sent to the streets to suppress the people. This is while the use of children under 15 years of age as military personnel is prohibited in international treaties and according to the “Rome Statute” is referred to as a “war crime.”