Embed

Crisis Childhood

Sold out to ISIS: Filipino child soldiers

Jaffar and Abdullah are only teenagers, but they’ve already been to war, fighting alongside ISIS-allied militants in the southern Philippines.

The ISIS associated Abu Sayyaf group doesn’t just take on adult fighters, it also recruits child-soldiers.

It wasn’t their choice. The teens were sold by their relatives to the Abu Sayyaf extremist group.

“I was meant to kill,” says 14-year-old Jaffar, sold to terrorists by his own father for just under $450.

The jihadists seek out young boys as recruits, offering their impoverished parents as little as $500 in exchange. Boys like Jaffar and Abdullah are sent to training camps for physical training and to learn how to use weapons. They were prepared to engage in combat, be used as human shields and suicide bombers, or serve as organ donors for wounded fighters.

At 17, Abdullah ended up in an ISIS training camp after being sold by his uncle to militants, along with his cousin.

An RTD crew journeyed to the Philippines a year after the devastating conflict between the Islamic insurgents and government forces in the city of Marawi. The teens, who managed to run away amid the mayhem, relive their memories and describe the trauma they’ve gone through.

Subscribe to get stories the mainstream media ignores: Subscribe RTD's Youtube

WATCH TRAILER
Please rate this film

8.44(18 users)

Published: 27 February 2019 00:58

Duration

27:34

Tags
Watch this film in Russian

don't miss

26:33
Crime and Terrorism 08 February 2019 00:30

Where Childhood Died. Former Syrian child soldiers and their emotional scars

26:33
Crime and Terrorism 16 August 2017 00:00

Battle For Marawi. Civilians suffer while army battles ISIS militants in Philippines

26:33
Military and War 22 June 2016 00:00

Children of the Front. A rehabilitation center that helps child soldiers erase war memories and rejoin society

26:33
Society 25 May 2016 00:00

Fallen Angels. True cost of sex tourism: Philippine’s fatherless kids

26:33
Professions 05 May 2017 00:00

Golden Gamble. Gold mining in the Philippines, a dirty business

26:33
Society 23 October 2019 00:30

Lost Kids. Stories from desperate parents amid India’s missing children epidemic

26:33
Society 28 November 2022 12:00

Young Guard Reborn. Donbass youth on the defence of their motherland again

26:33
Environment 30 July 2018 00:00

Palawan Lost . The dark side of a tropical idyll that tourists don't see

26:33
Human Rights 23 January 2017 00:00

Project Duterte. Law enforcement or mass terror? The Philippines’ war on drugs. With episodes in 360

26:33
Environment 08 December 2021 12:00

Diving for Gold. Risky job in the Philippines Klondike

26:33
Military and War 26 January 2024 11:59

I’m a Hero, Mum. "Mum, I'm a scout!" — the story of a hero who fell fighting for Mariupol

26:33
Human Rights 30 January 2015 00:00

Argentina's Stolen Children. Grandmothers search for the babies of the military dictatorship victims

26:33
Military and War 31 August 2020 20:00

Orphaned by ISIS. After ISIS: Bringing the children home

26:33
Human Rights 03 December 2012 00:00

Legal abduction

26:33
Personalities 21 April 2017 00:00

Escobar's Hitman. Former drug-gang killer, now loved and loathed in Colombia

26:33
Human Rights 05 November 2012 00:00

Brides by Force. Marriage by kidnapping pushes Kyrgyz women to suicide

26:33
Crime and Terrorism 10 February 2023 12:00

Abducted in Mexico. Parents hunt their kids' kidnappers themselves due to police corruption

26:33
Crime and Terrorism 30 November 2018 00:30

Hunting Boko Haram. Fed-up Nigerian Adamawa hunters take on Islamic terrorists

26:33
Military and War 15 June 2015 00:00

Her War: Women VS ISIS. Inside the training camp of an all-female Kurdish battalion

26:33
Crime and Terrorism 23 October 2015 00:00

Victims of ISIS. IS slaves share their story

VIEWER’S CHOICE: 1,000,000 VIEWS AND MORE

VIEW ALL