I have never seen any news report on CPI Maoist recruiting child soldiers.

Comrades have made excellent points in this thread. I do not know but do not think the NPA or the Indian Maoists are using child soldiers.

Something that must be considered regarding human rights accusations about “recruiting” child soldiers is the fact that oftentimes throughout history imperialist forces were killing anyone and everyone. When the Americans invaded the Philippines they gave the order to murder anyone over 13. “Human rights organizations” in the U.S., if they existed at the time, would point out examples of said 13 year olds fighting for their lives against an overwhelming and brutal force as “child soldiers”, all the while forgoing criticizing their own militaries for murdering children, armed or unarmed. A modern example is in Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine and Iraq. A common trope pointed to by Human Rights NGOs and soldiers’ orgs was that “terrorists” would give children grenades and the children would run into platoons of soldiers. There are two ways to look at this.

• The terrorists are violating international law and abusing these childrens’ human rights by making them fight. Why don’t their standing armies only recruit military aged men? What savagery!
• The “standing armies” of these nations don’t actually exist. Either they never existed, they’ve functionally been wiped out, or they are compradors fighting on behalf of the invaders. The invaders are murdering and raping everyone and anyone including children, blowing up schools and hospitals. This is asymmetrical warfare fought by starving and desperate people against an overwhelming force willing to forgo human rights in any suicidal bid in protecting their homes and nations. It’s not right, but war is hell, especially when you have no guns or military.

The first line is pushed by media and NGOs. The second line is closer to the truth. Invaders often show no quarter even to children. The nations they are invading are often underdeveloped. Children are starving and scared. They, and possibly the adults around them, feel they have no option but to fight.

This is not to excuse or attempt to argue in favor of using child soldiers, it is an attempt to understand why they may appear. There are very clear cut cases of terrorist groups like Kony’s “Liberation Army” recruiting child soldiers basically for shits and giggles, because children are easily malleable and controllable. There are also not-so-clear cut cases of desperate peoples resorting to desperate measures.

Child soldiers = not good. That’s about the extent of my insight. Don’t use child soldiers. It’s a pretty simple rule that any communist guerilla army should be able to follow.

I don’t know if Maoist guerillas have a pattern of using them, as you said western “human rights” groups are prone to doing anti-communist propaganda for the imperialists.

There is of course also the question where exactly you draw the line as to what constitutes “child soldiers”. If it’s anyone under 18 then arguably a lot of armies in history have used them, teenagers still under 18 would frequently join armies under false pretenses. The Soviets for sure probably had some 16 and 17 year olds fighting for them in the Great Patriotic War.

If we’re talking like clear cut cases where it’s not at all in the grey zone then i don’t know, but considering that some Maoist guerillas like the Shining Path have a… less than stellar reputation, i would not be surprised if others also resorted to similarly immoral methods. My guess is this is the result of insufficient/incorrect application of the Mass Line.

It’s an indication that you have failed to win over the people. If you’re recruiting successfully from a broad base of popular support then you don’t need to resort to such desperate measures.

Kind of like terrorism. Winning armies don’t do it.