Armed forces are no place for 16-year-olds This article originally appeared in The Guardian. It is unacceptable that the British armed forces continue to recruit people under the age of 18. We are academics who research the armed forces or who are concerned with the wellbeing of young people, and it has been brought to our attention that the youth wing of the Scottish National party is presenting a motion to raise the minimum age of military recruitment to 18 at the SNP’s national conference. We fully support the SNP youth motion. The UK is one of only 19 countries worldwide to recruit 16-year-olds. Other countries that do so include North Korea, Iran and Syria. No other EU or Nato member state recruits 16-year-olds. Some 2,250 minors were recruited into the armed forces in the past 12 months. The army alone enlisted 1,000 16-year-olds. This makes 16-year-olds the single biggest age group entering the army. The army states that it uses the recruitment of minors as “an opportunity to mitigate standard entry shortfalls, particularly for the infantry”. This is worrying because the infantry has the highest fatality and injury rate of any branch of the armed forces. Child Soldiers International has found that soldiers who enlisted at 16 were twice as likely to die in Afghanistan as those who enlisted aged 18 or above. The UK’s child recruitment policy has been challenged by the UK parliament’s joint committee on human rights, the defence committee, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, major child rights organisations, Amnesty International, the National Union of Teachers, the UN committee on the rights of the child and military veterans themselves. The UK government has ignored all these calls to review the policy, and it is an issue on which the SNP should take leadership. Dr Rhys Crilley Open UniversityDr Jamie Johnson University of SheffieldDr Aggie Hirst City University LondonAlister Wedderburn Australian National UniversityDr Kevin McSorley University of PortsmouthDr Helen Dexter University of LeicesterDr Katy Parry University of LeedsDr Melanie Richter-Montpetit University of SheffieldDr Joanna Tidy University of SheffieldDr Andrew Judge University of GlasgowProfessor Cynthia Enloe Clark University, USADr Naomi Head University of GlasgowDr Laura Mills University of St AndrewsDr Catherine Baker University of HullDr Ciaran Gillespie University of SurreyDr Claire Duncanson University of EdinburghDr Laura Shepherd University of New South Wales, AustraliaDr Megan Mackenzie University of Sydney, AustraliaDr Julia Welland University of WarwickDr Linda Åhäll Keele UniversityDr Nicholas Robinson University of LeedsDr Harriet Gray University of Gothenburg, SwedenDr Victoria Basham Cardiff UniversityDr Katharine Wright Newcastle UniversityDr Cian O’Driscol University of GlasgowDr Scott Harding University of Connecticut, USASeth Kershner Northwestern Connecticut Community College, USAFederica Caso University of Queensland, AustraliaProfessor Sally Wyke University of GlasgowDr Chris Rossdale London School of Economics and Political ScienceDr John Carman University of BirminghamAlice Cree Durham UniversityDr Diana Martin University of PortsmouthDr Nancy Taber Brock University, CanadaDr Synne Dyvik University of SussexDr Bryan Mabee Queen Mary University of LondonWesley Doyle University of LiverpoolDr Robertson Allen Author of America’s Digital Army, USAProfessor Hugh Gusterson George Washington University, USADr Matthew Flintham Kingston UniversityProfessor Anthony Burke University of New South Wales, AustraliaAlbert Sargis Niebyl-Proector Marxist Library for Social Research, USADr Adam Broinowski Australian National UniversityDr James Eastwood Queen Mary, University of LondonProfessor Paul Dixon Kingston UniversityDr Catriona Pennell University of ExeterDr Sarah Bulmer University of ExeterDr Brian Lagotte University of Kansas, USAHenry Redwood King’s College LondonDr Hannah Partis-Jennings King’s College LondonDr Thomas Gregory University of Auckland, New ZealandDr Cristina Masters University of ManchesterDr Tom Smith University of PortsmouthDr Stephen Gibson York St John UniversityDavid Gee ForcesWatch © Flickr