Children are being recruited by drug gangs and rebel groups in Colombia for increasingly dangerous tasks, including piloting drones equipped with explosives, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Monday.
Criminal organizations in Colombia are leveraging social media to recruit minors, seeking to expand their control over rural territories where they engage in drug trafficking, extortion, and illegal mining. These children are then trained in drone warfare and tasked with carrying out potentially lethal missions against rival groups or attacking police and army installations.
"Armed groups in Colombia are recruiting children with impunity," said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "Protection systems are failing, and social media platforms have become a more effective recruiting ground."
The report indicates that children who operate drones are often told the activity is a game rather than participation in armed conflict. Human Rights Watch verified videos on social media depicting children using explosive-laden drones and interviewed children who had escaped from or demobilized from armed groups.
Colombia's Human Rights Defenders' Office reported that armed groups conducted 121 drone attacks in the first five months of 2024, resulting in 21 deaths and 145 injuries.
According to Colombia’s Human Rights Defenders' Office, at least 1,500 children have been recruited by armed groups since 2021, with 625 cases reported in the current year. This marks an increase compared to the peak of the conflict in 1999, when an estimated 1,320 children were recruited by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
A 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC initially reduced violence and child recruitment. However, recruitment has surged again as smaller rebel factions and other criminal organizations vie for control of areas previously influenced by the FARC, where state presence and social services remain limited.
Human Rights Watch identified social media accounts that allegedly glorifying life within rebel groups, a concern previously highlighted by the United Nations. The watchdog group suggested that platform algorithms on sites like Meta and TikTok may have actively promoted content encouraging children to join these groups. Both Meta and TikTok have stated they prohibit content promoting violence and have removed flagged accounts.
The report specifically names a FARC splinter group led by Ivan Mordisco as being involved in a significant number of child recruitment cases, particularly in Colombia's Cauca region. Data analysis by Human Rights Watch shows that nearly half of all reported recruitment cases since 2021 involved Indigenous children, despite them constituting only 4% of the national population. Girls accounted for 40% of all recruited children.
Human Rights Watch urged the Colombian government to allocate more resources towards prosecuting individuals involved in child recruitment and to enhance prevention efforts in rural areas. The organization also called on social media platforms to create accessible channels for reporting recruitment-related content and to preserve evidence for prosecutors. There has been no immediate government response to the report.