Colombia: Armed Groups Expand Child Recruitment

Source briefing · A concise briefing based on one linked source. It is intentionally shorter than a full FreedomWitness Evidence Engine analysis.

What the source reports

Click to expand Image 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.

© 2026 Federico Ríos Escobar 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…

Evidence note: At this stage FreedomWitness is presenting what this source reports. This briefing does not independently prove every underlying claim and should be read together with the original material.

Source & verification

Primary source: Human Rights Watch News · August 24, 2026

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