A 17-year-old boy recruited by the 33rd Front of the EMBF, a dissident group of the demobilized FARC, operating in Colombia’s Catatumbo region near the Venezuelan border.
Child recruitment by armed groups has risen sharply in Colombia in recent years; exploiting poverty, social exclusion, and lack of education to lure children with promises of money, power, and prestige, and increasingly using social media to do so.Colombia has established a range of policies and strategies to prevent child recruitment, and protect and rescue children, but some of these are inadequate and their implementation often falls short. The new administration of President Abelardo de la Espriella should adopt a comprehensive security and justice policy to end these grave human rights violations and ensure that agencies charged with protecting children have the resources and capacity to address this scourge.
(Washington, DC) – Child recruitment by armed groups has increased in Colombia as the government has failed to respond effectively, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
August 24, 2026 “I Thought I’d Never See My Mom Again”
Recruitment and Use of Children by Colombian Armed Groups
Download the full report in English
Appendix I: Letter from Meta to Human Rights Watch
Appendix II: Email from TikTok to Human Rights Watch
The 102-page report, “‘I Thought I’d Never See My Mom Again’: Recruitment and Use of Children by Colombian Armed Groups,” examines the dynamics of child recruitment, the factors that place children at risk, and the strategies and tools used by armed groups, including through social media platforms, to recruit them. Researchers also analyzed the government’s response and its shortcomings in prevent
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