No, the existence of child soldiers is due to illegal indoctrination and recruitment efforts. That's the entire purpose of thoe Jihadi "schools" run by the Houthi.

https://www.memri.org/reports/houthi-summer-camps-children-teach-jihad-sake-allah-hatred-west

https://sanaacenter.org/ypf/curriculum-changes-to-mold-the-jihadis-of-tomorrow/

Kids aren't signing up for this, they're bullied and brainwashed into it, and any legitimate military force would reject them.

No child, happy or otherwise, legally becomes a soldier.

https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/six-grave-violations/child-soldiers/

"Human rights law declares 18 as the minimum legal age for recruitment and use of children in hostilities. Recruiting and using children under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited under international humanitarian law – treaty and custom – and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court. Parties to conflict that recruit and use children are listed by the Secretary-General in the annexes of his annual report on children and armed conflict."

Definitely not a stretch for adults to pick up weapons and fight, but what they're doing to the kids by propagandizing them through religious indoctrination is entirely a different matter.

This is why the UN required them to stop using kids, which they agreed to in 2022...

https://youtu.be/angi1vwUkQc

Unfortunately, all of that goes against what they agreed to do in 2022:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/13/yemen-houthis-recruit-more-child-soldiers-october-7

"In 2022, the Houthis signed an action plan with the UN to end grave violations against children, including the recruitment and use of children in their forces, and committed to releasing all children from their forces within six months.

Tawfik al-Hamidi, the president of SAM, told Human Rights Watch that the Houthis use their government institutions in their efforts to recruit children, including the Ministries of Education, Interior, and Defense. “All of them are working together and coordinate to mobilize children and recruit them,” he said.

Another activist, who works as a human rights researcher, said that “[recruitment] activities in schools have increased massively [since October 7], including through the school scouts. They take students from schools to their culture centers where they lecture children about the Jihad and send them to military camps and front lines.”

By leveraging official institutions, including schools, the Houthis have managed to take advantage of a far broader swathe of children. The UN secretary-general has also reported on the Houthis’ use of educational facilities for military purposes."

I think you guys are on two different tracks.

When @Keeponstalin@lemmy.world references "the genocide", I don't think they're talking about the ongoing Israeli genocide, they're talking about the OTHER genocide, the one in Yemen, which directly involves the Houthi.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2024.2346405#abstract

It all gets muddled because the Houthis also make attacks in the Red Sea so it all kind of conflates together.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sea_crisis

But Squid is right in that child soldiers aren't volunteers, they don't have the capacity of volunteering. They're conscripted, often on dire threats against them and their families.

The Israeli genocide really does have nothing to do with it. The Yemeni genocide definitely does.

I noticed it in the theater... There's a bit where CM catches a space ship in mid air and throws it and there's just no weight or physicality to it at all. Might as well be styrofoam.

Please do not call for war crimes.

Removed for spam footer.

Well, if you want to argue "Lebanon is controlled by Hezbollah" then you have to fault the UN for specifically putting the Lebanese government in charge of the operation to disarm Hezbollah.

If you read 1701, there are only 2 groups authorized to be armed between the river and the border, the UN and the Lebanese army and the UN is only present to assist the Lebanese army, they aren't there to take action on their own, that is not in their mandate.

So knowing all that, yeah, no surprise nothing has happened in 20 years. ;)

I think smarter people than me will have to figure it out and even then it's going to be a war of escalation. Ban the bots, build better bots, back and forth back and forth.

Some news sites had an interesting take on comments sections. Before you could comment on an article, you had to correctly answer a 5 question quiz proving you actually read it.

But AI can do that now too.

Definitely a mixture of both, but the one thing I guarantee is if you sit around doing nothing, that's exactly all you'll ever attain.

I talked with Squid about this and we're restoring your comments. It looks to me like you both managed to talk right past each other.

You're right, the UN hasn't really done a thing to enforce resolution 1701. But then, when have UN troops EVER managed to enforce ANY resolution?

I'm old enough to remember George W. Bush arguing in favor of invading Iraq going "They're violating 17 UN resolutions!" and the reaction from sane people was "Yeah? And Israel is violating 80? 90? We going to invade Israel too?"

Where Squid went off was the whole "UN doing nothing" thing. It's pretty clear to me you MEANT nothing about 1701, but they are doing a lot of good humanitatarian work on the ground, you know, when Israel isn't SHOOTING AT THEM.

https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/unifil

"Following the July/August 2006 crisis, the Council enhanced the Force and decided that in addition to the original mandate, it would, among other things, monitor the cessation of hostilities; accompany and support the Lebanese armed forces as they deploy throughout the south of Lebanon; and extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations and the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons."

If you need to blame somebody for failing to disarm Hezbollah, and it's obvious to anyone they have NOT disarmed, look toward the Lebanese army.

More on the UN mandate in regards to 1701 here:

https://unifil.unmissions.org/unifil-mandate

"Assist the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in taking steps towards the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL deployed in this area.

Assist the Government of Lebanon, at its request, in securing its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel."

The UN is not there to enforce the disarmament of Hezbollah. That's the job of the Lebanese, it's their country. The UN is purely there to assist.