Violence in Colombia

Colombian guerrillas recruit children via Tiktok

Just like Swedish criminal gangs, Colombian guerrillas have begun using Tiktok and other social media to recruit child soldiers. Reuters reports that it has identified more than 100 active Tiktok accounts that appear to be run by the right-wing paramilitary militia EGC and the left-wing guerrillas ELN and Farc.

The number of child soldiers, which decreased after the peace agreement between the government and Farc in 2016, has started to increase again. Last year, 453 cases were documented, more than four times more than in 2019, according to a UN report. 48 percent of the children are indigenous and 40 percent are girls.

Tiktok tells Reuters that it is doing its best to moderate the content in cooperation with the authorities.

Children on Tiktok: “How do I join the guerrillas?”

On the recruitment accounts of Colombian guerrilla groups on TikTok, young people show how they fight, party and produce cocaine. This is what several experts from civil society organizations tell the Spanish newspaper El País.

Children are offered bundles of banknotes and mobile phones to join. The posts are provided with hashtags and songs that are already viral so that they appear in the children's feeds.

Sometimes the recruitment begins as a "challenge", a challenge to spread the guerrillas' message on the platform in exchange for payment.

- They give them 25 kronor to post a photo. Then they raise the level to transporting drugs or becoming fighters, says Diana Vargas from the organization Tejedores de Paz.

Other children actively seek out the armed groups, Reuters reports, quoting comments from children on open recruitment posts:

"How do I join?"

"I want to be a guerrilla fighter."

“I have people for you.”