Iran Guards recruit children to ‘defend the homeland’, placing them in line of fire

The poster shows a teenager standing alongside a Basij militiaman in combat fatigues, his hand over his heart. The message is clear: all Iranians, including youths, are summoned to defend the Islamic republic as it faces wave after wave of US and Israeli attacks. 

In late March, a month into the Iran war, a deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards for Greater Tehran, Rahim Nadali, announced on state television the launch of a campaign to recruit citizens “aged 12 and over” to become “volunteer fighters” and “defend the homeland”. 

The campaign is aimed at both boys and girls, according to Iranian news agency ANA, which says young recruits could take part in intelligence operations, “identity checks and patrols”, as well as carrying out logistical tasks such as preparing meals and distributing equipment and supplies. 

However, several NGOs have warned that children are already being used in operational missions on the ground, including deployment for military objectives – such as at security checkpoints – that put them in the line of fire. 

On Thursday, Amnesty International said eyewitness accounts and verified audiovisual evidence showed child soldiers being deployed at Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) checkpoints and patrols, armed with weapons, including AK-pattern rifles.   

“As US and Israeli strikes hit thousands of IRGC sites, including Basij facilities, across the country, including through drone attacks targeting security patrols and checkpoints, the deployment of child soldiers alongside IRGC personnel or in their facilities puts them at grave risk of death and injury,” said Amnesty’s Erika Guevara-Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns. 

A fatal drone strike 

Such deployments account for the tragic death of 11-year-old Alireza Jafari, who was killed by an Israeli drone strike targeting security forces at a checkpoint on a Tehran motorway on March 11. 

In an interview with Iranian daily Hamshahri published days later, Sadaf Manfard, the child’s mother, said Alireza’s father had told her on the night of the attack that he was taking their son to the checkpoint with him due to a “shortage of personnel”. Alireza would thus be “prepared for the days ahead”, added the father, who also died in the attack. 

In the interview, the mother also noted that teens aged 16 and 17 have regularly participated in street patrols run by the Basij, a voluntary paramilitary force that has played a key role in suppressing protest movements over the years. 

The multi-faceted militia has a strong presence in local communities. It frequently organises educational, religious and social activities for young people, particularly in the most deprived neighbourhoods where it draws many of its recruits. 

One of the Basij branches, the Basij Farhangian Organisation, confirmed that Alireza had been killed “while on duty”, according to Hengaw, a Norway-based NGO. 

In March, a Tehran resident contacted by FRANCE 24 expressed horror at what he described as the militarisation of the capital. He recalled seeing a “boy stationed at a checkpoint with a weapon who didn’t even have a moustache yet”. 

War crime 

Hengaw and other human rights groups point out that the recruitment or use of children under the age of 15 in the armed forces or in warfare constitutes a war crime. They call on the UN and its children’s fund UNICEF to step up legal and diplomatic pressure on Tehran to halt this practice. 

Under the Geneva Conventions, a cornerstone of international law, children are entitled to special protection and their mobilisation in armed conflicts is strictly prohibited. 

The Islamic republic, however, has a track record of exploiting minors in military and paramilitary bodies. 

In a 2024 report, the US-based NGO Human Rights Activists in Iran (Hrana) exposed the recruitment of vulnerable groups, notably Afghan minors, to join the Fatemiyoun Division, a paramilitary group fighting in Syria under the auspices of the IRGC. 

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Drawing on testimonies from former child soldiers, Hrana highlighted a “troubling pattern of manipulation, where minors and individuals in precarious visa situations are coerced into combat roles under threats of violence or death. Promises of financial compensation and legal status made to them are consistently broken.” 

In 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on the Bonyad Taavon Basij network, a multibillion-dollar financial network that supports Basij paramilitary forces. Several companies and institutions were subsequently targeted for providing “financial infrastructure to the Basij's efforts to recruit, train, and indoctrinate child soldiers who are coerced into combat under the IRGC's direction”. 

Rights groups also documented the use of child soldiers in 2011, when Basij units recruited teenagers aged 14 to 16 to help suppress anti-government protests in Iran. 

Ghosts of Iran-Iraq war 

The Iranian regime has long glorified sacrifice and martyrdom, including among minors. 

During the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), children were sent to their deaths in “human waves” designed to clear minefields and allow the safe passage of troops. Bereaved families received financial compensation for each child killed, as well as a martyr’s card entitling them to food and other privileges. 

Iranian boys were indoctrinated from a very young age to take part in the fighting. They were given a “key to paradise”, with the promise that they would go straight to heaven if they died as martyrs fighting the Iraqi enemy – a practice described in chilling detail in the BBC documentary “Frontline Children”. 

In 1982, the regime’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini decreed that parental consent was not required for children sent to the front. He also stated that volunteering for military service was a religious duty, and that service in the armed forces took precedence over any other form of work or study. 

To this day, it is not uncommon to see murals in Iran glorifying the deaths of child soldiers. One such mural in Tehran pays tribute to 13-year-old Mohammad Fahmideh, who detonated his belt of grenades after throwing himself under an Iraqi tank, and is depicted alongside Ayatollah Khomeini. 

The heirs to this culture of self-sacrifice include some of the most influential figures in the Islamic republic, such as Parliament speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, who joined the fight against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq aged 19 and subsequently climbed up the ranks to become a commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, paving the way for his career at the top of the Iranian state.  

Decades after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, and with the Islamic republic once again fighting for its survival, the official discourse remains much the same: the sacrifice of children is still celebrated, with complete disregard for international law.

This article was translated from the original in French by Benjamin Dodman.