KINGDOM OF BHUTAN

Mainly covers the period June 1998 to April 2001 as well as including some earlier information.

  • Population:227
    – total: 2,064,000
    – under-18s: 1,009,000
  • Government armed forces:228
    – 6,000
  • Compulsory recruitment age: no conscription
  • Voluntary recruitment age: 18
  • Voting age (government elections): decided at district level
  • Child soldiers: none indicated
  • CRC-OP-CAC: not signed
  • Other treaties ratified: GC; CRC
  • There are no current indications of under-18s in government armed forces. In the early and mid-1990s there were reports of forced child recruitment into the Royal Bhutan Army as well as child involvement in militias and village defence forces. Insurgent activity continues in Bhutan by armed groups from northeast India and exiled Nepali-speaking refugees from Bhutan.

CONTEXT

Following a government crackdown on opposition in southern Bhutan in the early 1990s, some 100,000 Nepali speaking people left the country, many of them forcibly expelled; most remain in refugee camps run by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Nepal. Although initial verification procedures have begun, progress in bilateral talks to resolve the refugee problem has been slow.229 In the meantime, some elements in the refugee camps and other dissident groups have engaged in low level incursions and sabotage inside Bhutan. The presence of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and Bodo fighters engaged in the conflicts in neighbouring Indian states (see India entry) also pose a growing security problem. While the government has sought dialogue with these groups, there are signs of increased mobilisation of the Bhutanese army as well as joint operations with Indian security forces in the border region.

GOVERNMENT

National Recruitment Legislation and Practice

According to the Royal Government of Bhutan, conscription was ended more than a decade ago. The Royal Bhutan Army is an all-volunteer force and the minimum recruitment age is 18.230

The majority of officers and non-commissioned Officers of the Royal Bhutan Army are trained by the Indian military at establishments in Bhutan and India. Recruits are trained at the Army Training Centre established in 1957 at Tenchholing in Wangdiphodrang District.

Militia have been raised at various times, including during internal disturbances in the early 1990s. Militia training was reportedly provided to individuals who had completed at least the tenth grade, new college graduates, and members of the civil service. In the face of the continued presence of ULFA and Bodo fighters in the country, there were calls in the National Assembly in 2000 for the reintroduction of militia training for men between the ages of 18 and 60.231 According to the Royal Government of Bhutan there is no longer any standing militia force in the country and no military training has been conducted outside the armed forces.232 The Royal Bhutan Police is not part of the armed forces.233

Child Recruitment and Deployment

In September 2000 the Government of Bhutan stated that "the question of the use of children as combatants ... does not arise" due to the absence of "a war like situation" in Bhutan.234

There is some evidence of underage recruitment in the past, particularly during the major security mobilisation in the early 1990s. A case study on Bhutan conducted for the Machel Study in 1995 provided testimonies indicating that detachments of the Royal Bhutan Army contained young boys, some not more than 15 years of age.235 Testimony from former soldiers now living in the refugee camps in Nepal suggested a pattern of forced underage recruitment at that time. For example, one boy from Samdripjongkhar district said, "I ran away from home when I was told that I would have to join the army. I was only 16 years old. But it was not to go on for long. They caught me and forced me to join." According to one source, children who failed their school examinations were compelled to join the armed forces, and families with more than three sons were required to send at least one for military service.236 NGO sources claim that up to 30 per cent of militia recruits in the early 1990s were school and village children.237

A system of village defence committees is used to provide local patrols in the border region, in which children under 18 are reportedly used regularly. The government states these are informal and voluntary structures that do not involve children.238

227 UNICEF/2001. Population figures for Bhutan remain disputed on the basis of unresolved citizenship claims; projections of the total population (1999 – 57,548) and under 20s (1998 . 325,537) were provided by Permanent Mission of Bhutan to the United Nations in Geneva in 3/01.

228 Figure provided by government in 3/01, op. cit.

229 Balencie and de La Grange op. cit.; Pattanaik, S.S., "Ethnic identity, conflict and nation building in Bhutan", Strategic Analysis, Vol. XXII, No. 4, July 1998.

230 Information provided to CSC by Permanent Mission of Bhutan to the United Nations in Geneva, 9/00.

231 Keunsel Newspaper, 11/00.

232 Permanent Mission of Bhutan, 9/00 and 3/01 op. cit.

233 Ibid.

234 Statement by Permanent Mission of Bhutan to the United Nations in Geneva, September 2000.

235 RB database quoting the Machel case study, http://www.rb.se.

236 Information provided to Asia-Pacific Conference on the Use of Children as Soldiers, Kathmandu, May 2000.

237 Ibid.

238 Permanent Mission of Bhutan, 3/01, op. cit.

Disclaimer:

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.