Year of the Child in Syria

"Children as young as 11 badly treated or tortured to extract confessions or humiliate them or to pressure a relative to surrender or confess. Ill treatment and torture reportedly included beatings with metal cables, whips and wooden and metal batons; electric chocks, including to the genitals; the ripping out of fingernails and toenails; sexual violence, including rape or threats of rape; mock executions, cigarette burns; sleep deprivation; solitary confinement; and exposure to the torture of relatives."
"Reports indicate children were also suspended from walls or ceilings by their wrists or other limbs, were forced to put their head, neck and legs through a tire while being beaten, and were tied to a board and beaten. Children and adults were beaten with metal bars, their fingernails were pulled out and their fingers were cut; or they were beaten with a hammer in the back, sometimes until death."
United Nations Report on Syria

Terrible aftermath: A heartbreaking image of children said to have been killed in Houla by Assad's thugs in a still from a video taken by an activist and posted online

Government forces reportedly used civilians, including at least eight children, as human shields, threatening to kill the children if the opposition did not surrender. Syrian government forces reportedly invaded Deir Balbi (Homs governorate), forced women and children into the street. As FSA groups approached, civilians, including children, were forced to line up and stand between the tanks and soldiers of the Syrian army to dissuade FSA groups from attacking.

In Homs, the regime abducted children from schools and marched them in the streets with loudspeakers announcing their arrival, and informing potential attackers not to fire as they had children with them. It is not clear what happened to the children afterward.

Armed opposition groups such as the Free Syrian Army recruited and used children, both in support roles and for combat. The children were employed as cooks, porters, lookouts, spies and messengers, and to smuggle arms across borders. They also cleaned weapons and prepared and loaded ammunition.


Government forces have arrested, arbitrarily detained and tortured children for their perceived or actual association with the opposition. In comparing regime behaviour toward Syrian children from Sunni backgrounds against the way in which the rebel forces used children to their advantage aiding them to achieve their purpose as junior members of the opposition, the regime stands out as ghoulishly bloodthirsty, immune to any human compassion for children.

The United Nations estimates that ten thousand children have been killed throughout the three years of Syrian violence. Children are targeted by snipers. The killing and maiming of children by Syrian Armed Forces and Shabiha (government militias) was reported during ground operations, including during house-to-house searches for opposition members.

Children were also killed in bombings and massacres, and there were "numerous reports of the use of expanding bullets against children".

Syria remains a member in good, very good standing within the United Nations.