Mobilizing students: Mullahs’ arms recruit children inside and outside Iran
The mullah regime will not abandon its world plan to expand
and spread its extremist Shiite approach, or what Tehran calls “exporting the
Iranian revolution,” to the Arab and Islamic world. It uses extremist tricks to
spread terrorism and exploit different groups of people, including men, women
and children, recruiting them and throwing them onto the battlefield. But it is
not unusual for a regime that carries out terrorism to use children as arms in
wars instead of striving to provide them with a quality education that would
benefit the state.
Basij Students
In this context, the Iranian regime inaugurated an
institutional entity to recruit children for wars and train them to fight. The
Student Mobilization Foundation, also known as the Basij Students, is
affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), as it bears the same
name as the IRGC Basij Forces. There are also the Basij women's units that work
to suppress dissent and liquidate opponents. The mullahs use these institutions
at any time to spread and carry out terrorist acts.
The Basij Students was launched after the Iranian revolution
in 1979 to take part in the Iraq-Iran war that started in 1980. With the start
of the war, thousands of children were sent as volunteers for the IRGC, and
nearly 36,000 students were killed.
The Iranian regime provides significant funding and support
for this institution, and families and children are encouraged to be recruited
and participate in the institution to defend their country. According to
Iranian media, more than half of the students recruited into the Basij Students
are in the primary stage of education at ages no more than 12 years old.
Lures of recruitment
The Iranian regime is not shy about admitting its
recruitment of children to be planted on the fronts of battle. Eleven years
after its establishment, the Iranian Cabinet issued the executive regulations
for this institution, which provides for psychological training of children so
that they are mentally and physically able to contribute to the war effort. The
students are given cultural and enthusiastic courses on the curriculum of the
Khomeinist doctrine, in addition to training in the method of carrying weapons.
It also provides privileges for students to encourage them to join, such as
reducing the period of compulsory military service, benefitting from the quota
systems dedicated to members of the Basij Students, and bonus scores on
university entrance exams.
Foreign expansion
The Basij Students does not just recruit Iranian children,
but it also recruit children from outside Iran to participate in the ranks of
the Iranian militias in various cities. The foundation has active bases in
Khuzestan, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.
According to international and local media reports, the
Iranian regime has sent trained, non-Iranian children to participate in the
Syrian war, while the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen has followed the
same approach and worked to recruit children to participate in the fighting.
In November 2018, Human Rights Watch also accused the
Iranian regime of sending Afghan refugee children as soldiers to participate in
the battlefields of Syria after being recruited into the Fatimiyoun Brigade, an
Iranian arm made up mostly of Afghan Shiites. In February 2018, the media
published photos of Iranian clerics holding religious gatherings in the city of
Aleppo for Syrian children, who were given martial arts training.
In Yemen, the Houthi militia has followed the approach of
"mobilizing students" and has made offers to families by granting
financial rewards for every child who goes to the frontlines, while also granting
his family relief materials and registering them on the lists of those entitled
to food and priority treatment at hospitals, according to Yemeni media. In
December 2019, the Arab coalition forces accused the Houthis of recruiting
about 23,000 children to be pushed into battle, while Yemeni activists
announced that the Houthis are forcibly recruiting children and then spreading
lies that the coalition forces killed them.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah has recruited children to join its
ranks through the enactment of new laws that take advantage of the weakness of
their families, legislating the necessity of sending one minor child to combat
in the event that he is not his parents’ only child.
As Iran's militia activity expanded to countries around the
region, the United States imposed sanctions on October 30, 2018 against
companies that provide financial support to the Basij Forces, specifically
those that recruit children, instill bad ideas in students’ minds, and train
them to participate in battle.
