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4.2.1.Recruitment of children intoarmed groupsThe Optional Protocol on the Involvement ofChildren in Armed Conflict increases theminimum age for the participation of membersof armed forces in hostilities from 15 to18 years. OMCT welcomes the fact that thePhilippine military forces do not recruit soldiersunder the age of 18. The same rule appliesto non-State armed forces and “StatesParties shall take all feasible measures toprevent such recruitment and use, includingthe adoption of legal measures necessary toprohibit and criminalise such practices” byvirtue of Article 4 paragraph 1 and 2 ofthe Optional Protocol. However, armedparamilitary groups have been regularlyfound to resort to children to compose theirrebel groups. 23 It is very difficult to quantifythe number of children fighting with thevarious armed opposition groups.Especially the use of child combatants by theMoro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) andNational People’s Army (NPA) that are continuinglybeing reported. The PhilippinesGovernment estimated in 2001 that between3 and 14 percent of the NPA’s 9,000-10,000regular fighters were children. 2423A paper by the Sub-Group on Children inArmed Conflict and Child Labour (within theNGO Group for the CRC) pointed out that inclear violation of ILO Convention N° 182 onthe Worst Forms of Child Labour, article 3(a), some children are physically forced orcompelled to join the armed groups. Furtherthe paper showed that although an ILOStudy, showed that 34-40% of the respondentssaid they joined “voluntarily”, otherswere invited to join by family members orrebel group leaders, or joined out of religiousduty or for revenge. 25 However the paperwent on to show that such volunteering wasnot always quite so voluntary as it identifiedreasons for such volunteering as domestic exploitationand abuse, lack of access to educationand lack of alternative choices. 2623 - Human Rights Watch, The Philippines: Child Soldier Use2003, A Briefing for the 4th UN Security Council OpenDebate on Children and Armed Conflict, January 16, 2004, Multi Country Report24 - Marliza A Makinano: Child Soldiers in the Philippines(International Labor Affairs Service, Department of Laborand Employment, Philippines, 2001), pp 39-40.25 - ILO IPEC: Philippines: Child Soldiers in Central andWestern Mindanao: A Rapid Assessment (Investigating theWorst Forms of Child Labour No. 21), February 2002;UNICEF EAPRO: Adult Wars, Child Soldiers: Voices ofChildren involved in armed conflict in the East Asia andPacific Region (October 2002), pxvi26 - The NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of theChild, Sub-Group on Children in Armed Conflict and ChildLabour’s paper on the Compliance with ILO Convention No.182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention,August 2003.