Population: 374,000 (130,000 under 18)
Government Armed Forces: 7,000
Compulsary Recruitment Age: no conscription
Voluntary Recruitment Age: 17 and a half
Voting Age: not applicable
Optional Protocol: not signed
Other Treaties: GC AP I, GC AP II, CRC


The minimum voluntary recruitment age was 17 and a half years, but figures for serving under-18s were not available. The armed forces included the Boys' Wing, in which 15- to 17-year-olds could enrol for training.

Government:

National recruitment legislation and practice

There was no conscription. The minimum age of recruitment into the Royal Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF) under the Royal Brunei Armed Forces Act was 17 years and 6 months.1 Section 13 of the Act allowed for "eligible young persons" to be enlisted into the armed forces or the reserves regiment "for the purpose of raising and maintaining any unit consisting of or including boy soldiers or boy reservists with written consent from the boy's parents, person with parental rights and powers or the District Officer".2

Military training and military schools

The armed forces had a Boys' Wing, to which boys between the ages of 15 and 16 and a half could apply for selection, designed to be the training ground for young soldiers who intended to serve in the RBAF as technical personnel or military officers. Applicants were required to have the consent of their parents and their school principal.3

Those who joined the Boys' Wing were provided with full-term higher secondary education. They were required to undergo a 26-month basic military training consisting of drills, shooting skills, map reading, first aid, physical training and other preparedness for combat.4 It was unclear whether members of the Boys' Wing were considered to be part of the armed forces.

Developments:

On consideration of Brunei's initial report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2003, the Committee had recommended that Brunei ratify the Optional Protocol.5


1 Ministry of Defence, www.mindef.gov.bn.

2 Initial state party report on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Brunei Darussalam, UN Doc. CRC/C/61/Add.5, 13 March 2003.

3 Training Institute, Royal Brunei Armed Forces, www.mindef.gov.bn.

4 Training Institute, Royal Brunei Armed Forces; "Passing-out parade of the 26th and 27th intake of Boys' Wing recruits", 9 February 2007; both at www.mindef.gov.bn.

5 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding observations on initial report submitted by Brunei Darussalam, UN Doc. CRC/C/15/Add.219, 27 October 2003.

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