The Colombian government completed the first phase of a new strategy Thursday to prevent the recruitment of children by illegal armed forces.
Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon along with senior military and police officials met in the town of Ataco, in the department of Tolima, after completing the first phase of the new Strategy for the Prevention of Child Recruitment by illegal groups, newspaper El Espectador reports.
During a month of visits to various schools in the municipalities of Ataco, Planadas, Rio Blanco and Chaparral, several of which have been demobilized from the FARC, government officials from the Program for Humanitarian Attention for the Demobilized (PAHD) spoke to 1,700 students about the danger of criminal activity in an effort to promote peace, hope, and reconciliation.
This year there have been 1,255 demobilized guerrillas, 130 of which belonged to the central block of the FARC.