AFB0010

Written evidence submitted by Childs Rights International Network to the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill

Summary

The current Bill offers an opportunity to raise the minimum age for enlistment to 18, as widely advocated, and to enhance protections for recruits under this age in the interim.

This submission provides evidence on the enlistment and terms of service of this group, focusing on the army. The evidence covers:

• The national and international context;
• The risks and legal obligations that early enlistment introduces; and
• The advantages and feasibility of transition to all-adult armed forces.

Context

1. The British armed forces recruit large numbers of adolescent children from age 16 to fill the ranks:

1.1.   The British armed forces enlisted 3,260 16- and 17-year-olds in the year 2019–20.[1]

1.2.   Typically, three-quarters of recruits in the age group join the army,[2] mostly for basic infantry roles.[3]

1.3.   26 percent of the army’s intake is under 18; more soldier recruits are 16 than any other age.[4]

2. Enlistment from age 16 makes an international outlier of the UK:

2.1.   Three-quarters of states worldwide now allow only adults to be recruited in law.[5]

2.2.   The UK is one of 16 states worldwide, and the only state in the European region, that still allow enlistment from age 16.[6]

2.3.   Whereas certain other comparable armed forces, such as those of France and Germany, recruit from age 17, they do so in proportionally much smaller numbers.[7]

3. The Ministry of Defence acknowledges that the policy of enlisting 16- and 17-year-olds competes with their increasing participation in full-time education:[8]

3.1.   81 percent of disadvantaged young people now continue in full-time education beyond age 16.[9]

3.2.   By targeting this demographic for enlistment, the armed forces are more likely to draw young people out of full-time education than, as is often claimed,[10] offer a route out of youth unemployment.

4. Several human rights bodies have called for the UK enlistment age to rise to 18, including the Children’s Commissioners for the four UK nations,[11] the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child,[12] the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights,[13] health professionals,[14] and child rights advocates.[15] In addition, in December 2020 the Defence Committee again questioned the army’s dependence on underage recruits.[16]

Impact on health

5. The available evidence indicates that enlistment from age 16 is materially harmful:

5.1.   Drop-out rate. 30 percent of recruits enlisted under age 18 leave the army before they complete their Phase 2 training.[17] Every year, this leaves approximately 700 young people, who left full-time education to enlist, immediately out of work and education.[18]

5.2.   Stress. Younger people, particularly those in mid-adolescence and especially those with an adverse childhood background, carry elevated susceptibility to psychiatric harm when subjected to prolonged stress.[19] The armed forces’ use of physical and psychological stress to train adolescent children would be unacceptable in any civilian training setting for any age group.

5.3.   Mental health. In recent oral evidence to the Defence Committee, the Co-Directors of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research cited their unpublished paper which found that recruits enlisted under 18 face higher risks of harmful alcohol use and self-harm than those enlisted as adults.[20]

5.4.   Violence. Since 2014, the army has recorded 60 formal complaints of violence by instructors against recruits at the Army Foundation College, despite an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating for duty of care in 2018.[21] Ofsted’s report on the training centre is just two sides of A4 and does not mention these multiple allegations of abuse.[22]

Terms of service

6. On enlistment, underage recruits lose many of the rights enjoyed by civilian workers,[23] including the right to leave a job at will:

6.1.   First six weeks. Recruits have no legal right to leave the army in the first six weeks.[24]

6.2.   Up to age 18. After the first six weeks, recruits enlisted under age 18 may leave the armed forces at two weeks’ notice, and thereafter at up to three months’ notice until they turn 18.[25]

6.3.   Minimum service period. From the day they turn 18, recruits must serve for four further years, up to two years longer than is required of adult recruits.[26] The effect is to bind young recruits who turn 18 to military service for the first years of their adult life, as part of the commitment they entered when still legally children.

7. The army’s Junior Entry Review of 2019 considered ‘the creation of new ToS [Terms of Service] to align the minimum commitment lengths of U18 recruits to those who join over the age of 18’.[27] It noted that this change:

7.1.   Could appeal to potential recruits and their parents, and ‘would mitigate some external criticism and provide greater consistency to U18 recruits by aligning their commitment length with those joining the Army over the age of 18’.[28]

7.2.   Would also ‘make the process of leaving the Army as an U18 more transparent’.[29]

8. The Bill offers an opportunity to remove the age discrimination from the army terms of service.

Advantages and feasibility of all-adult armed forces

9. Several advantages would attach to armed forces staffed by adults only:

9.1.   Lower attrition. Adult recruits are substantially less likely to leave the army, either during training,[30] or at the ten-year point in their career.[31]

9.2.   Lower cost. It costs £53,000 to train an adult for the infantry, but £103,500 to train a soldier from age 16 for the same role to the same standard.[32]

9.3.   Greater resilience. Adult recruits are psychologically and physically more robust than younger recruits, which helps to buffer the risk of negative mental and physical health outcomes commonly experienced by veterans.

9.4.   Simpler to manage. All-adult armed forces can be deployed immediately after training and are not burdened with the additional consent and duty of care arrangements required by law for children.

10. Transition to all-adult armed forces is feasible:

10.1.                     Navy and air force transition. The naval service and RAF recruit relatively few under-18s per year; transition to all-adult recruitment is a small change.[33]

10.2.                     Army transition. In a RUSI Journal article in 2016, Child Soldiers International showed that a transition to an all-adult army could be achieved with a modest uplift in adult recruitment.[34] The article estimated that 50 percent of recruits who now join up at 16 or 17 would still have joined the army had the minimum age for enlistment been 18; the army’s recent research into recruit intentions lends support to this estimate.[35] Given these conditions, the article calculated that the army would need to increase its adult recruitment by 11 percent to make the transition to an all-adult force.[36] The army exceeded this level of adult recruitment in every year but one between 1999-00 and 2012-13.[37]

10.3.                     Financial savings/subsidy. We have calculated elsewhere that ending recruitment below the age of 18 would liberate approximately £50 million per annum.[38] The saving could be used to fund the uplift in adult recruitment and/or offer personnel substantial retention incentives.

10.4.                     Phased transition. To preserve confidence in the army’s manning, the Ministry of Defence has the option of phasing in the new enlistment age (e.g. to 16½, 17, 17½, and then 18).

11. The transition to all-adult armed forces would benefit young people in support of their additional rights as children. Specifically, raising the enlistment age to 18 would:

11.1.                     Safeguard young people from the health impact associated with premature enlistment, and from the socio-economic impact of the high drop-out rate among young trainees;

11.2.                     End a policy that encourages young people to enter a consequential legal commitment as children that binds them as adults;

11.3.                     End a policy that draws young people out of full-time education while most of their peers continue to enhance their accredited qualifications to age 18;

11.4.                     Still leave open the option of joining the armed forces with the greater resilience and responsibility of adulthood; and

11.5.                     Align the UK with the emerging global norm aimed at ending the use of all children for military purposes worldwide.

Conclusion

12. On the evidence summarised here, we argue that a transition to all-adult recruitment represents a progressive, modernising step for the UK armed forces. It would benefit the health and socio-economic prospects of young people while offering real advantages for the armed forces. The change is practically, operationally, and financially feasible, and carries minimal risk.
13. We recommend that the Committee amend the Bill to provide for:

13.1.                     The minimum enlistment age to be raised to 18; and

13.2.                     In the interim, the minimum service period applied to underage recruits be made no longer than that applied to adults.

References

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