Critics say the 16- and 17-year-olds at Army Foundation College are too young to learn to kill

Sixteen-year-old Grace Monaghan, one of Britain’s junior soldiers, is unfazed by the prospect of killing someone. “It’s not a nice thought,” she said. “But it’s what we’re trained to do. It doesn’t bother me much.”

Monaghan is one of hundreds of 16- and 17-year-olds being trained at the Army Foundation College in North Yorkshire.

She rejected the description “child soldier”: the UN definition is anyone under 18. “We are not children,” she said. “Because of what we do, we mature earlier.”



Armed forces are no place for 16-year-olds | Letters Read more

The UK is the only European country to recruit soldiers at 16. Other countries to take the same approach include Mauritania, Zambia, Bangladesh, Tonga and Papua New Guinea. In the US, the age limit is 17.

For much of British history, there was no age limit, a point highlighted by images of the young drummer boys. The army has resisted raising the age from 16, the school leaving age, partly because, struggling to find recruits, it finds it easier to attract the young – the salary is a big incentive for many from deprived areas – and partly, critics say, because soldiers at that age tend to be more malleable, and easier to establish in a habit of obedience.



Monaghan was speaking during a visit to the Harrogate college by journalists organised by the Ministry of Defence. It came before a court martial scheduled to begin on Monday of 10 instructors accused of physically abusing teenage recruits in 2014. Charges include holding junior soldiers’ heads underwater, forcing animal manure into their mouths and beating them.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The UN’s definition of a child soldier is anyone under 18. Photograph: Eddie Mulholland

While unable to discuss the case for legal reasons, the college’s commanding officer, Lt Col Rich Hall, defended the way the college treated its young recruits in general.

“Our young men and women who come through here seem relatively well prepared on arrival and extremely well prepared on departure,” he said. “They have very flexible terms of service that allows voluntary withdrawal from the course almost at any opportunity. It is a very fair, open system and the junior soldier genuinely thrives here.”



He added that all the permanent staff were handpicked and underwent extensive training, including in pastoral and welfare support. “So it feels to me our staff are extremely well prepared and the environment that creates is absolutely fit for purpose for training the young 16- to 17-year-olds that come through.”

Monaghan, from Huddersfield, is one of more than 1,000 16- to 17-year-olds who started in October. The MoD is adamant that none of those who graduate will be sent to a conflict zone until they are 18, though the MoD admitted in 2007 that 15 under-18s had been “inadvertently” sent to Iraq.



Critics argue that the point is not that they might end up in combat zones but the long-term damage caused by military training at such a young age, including learning to kill.

Monaghan said she had not seen any bullying, adding that there were lots of people involved in welfare, both military and civilian, she could go to if there was a problem. “I have never had an issue,” she said.



Part of the reason she had joined was to travel to places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the kind of experience she said ordinary people did not get the chance to have.



Of the 40-odd who began in her company, six had left, five of them after the first week, she said, some because of homesickness. “I miss my family a little bit but I go home at weekends,” she said.



Junior soldiers, who account for roughly a quarter of the army’s annual intake, are paid £1,244 a month for the first six months, rising to £1,540 for the second six months. They pay about £5 a day for food and £1 for accommodation.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Junior soldiers are paid £1,244 a month. Photograph: Philip Coburn/MDM

Another of the recruits, Jack Patrick, 17, from Hertfordshire, said he had not seen any bullying. “There have been one or two fights,” he said. “But there is zero tolerance of that. We are here to be disciplined soldiers.”

Patrick left school with four GSCEs and hopes at the end of his training to pass selection for the Parachute Regiment.

A parent of a child who has left the college, who requested anonymity, said the life there did not match the publicity material and their son, who joined three years ago, had phoned home after just three days asking to get out.

“My son is still sensitive to this episode in his life,” the father said.

Rachel Taylor, director of programmes at Child Soldiers International, said: “As a government department, the MoD shows a remarkable lack of concern for some of society’s most vulnerable young people.” The college does not meet the legal minimum education or safeguarding requirements of a sixth-form college, she said.



Taylor disputes the college’s claim to have a pass rate of more than 75%. “Although the MoD highlights the handpicked testimony of successful recruits, it says nothing about the one in three Harrogate recruits who is thrown out or quits during training, or the 40% of minors who leave the army within four years.”