Since FARC Accord, some 1,494 minors recruited by Colombia’s armed groups

Nearly a decade after Colombia signed its historic 2016 Final Peace Accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), guerrilla, the forced recruitment of children and adolescents remains a damning legacy of the internal conflict.

A harrowing report released on Friday, by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), reveals that 1,494 minors have been forcibly taken by illegal armed groups since the signing of the Final Accord, raising urgent concerns over the ongoing risks faced by Colombia’s most vulnerable youth.

The report, prepared by the JEP’s Investigations and Accusations Unit (UIA), covers the period from December 1, 2016 to April 10, 2025, and documents how a child or adolescent is recruited every 48 hours in Colombia. While rural areas continue to bear the brunt of this scourge, the findings underscore a growing and deeply disturbing trend: the use of social media platforms such as TikTok to attract, manipulate, and coerce minors into joining illegal armed groups.

Investigators warn that this new digital recruitment strategy marks a turning point. No longer limited to face-to-face or rural-based recruitment, armed groups are using online content – often embedded with music, emojis, and coded messaging – to glamorize armed life and entice vulnerable children. The content spreads rapidly: some posts created by accounts linked to these groups have garnered up to 625,000 views, while more than 500,000 users have been exposed to material promoting child recruitment.

“Recruitment is no longer just a rural phenomenon,” a UIA source told The City Paper. “With a smartphone and an internet connection, armed groups can now reach youth in cities, towns, and even inside schools.”

The JEP investigators identified 146 active social media accounts that are being used by illegal armed groups to circulate recruitment propaganda. These accounts collectively received over 230,000 views, targeting minors with stylized messages that disguise the brutal reality of conflict.

In Cauca, one of the most heavily affected departments, the report found that 26% of internet users are exposed to recruitment messaging on a daily basis. This digital exposure is especially dangerous in areas where state presence is minimal, and youth face limited access to education, employment, and protection.

The groups most heavily involved in this practice include FARC dissident fronts aligned with Iván Mordisco – notably the Jaime Martínez, Dagoberto Ramos, and Carlos Patiño fronts, which operate in Cauca and Valle del Cauca. Meanwhile, in Antioquia, the Roberto Vargas Gutiérrez bloc of the Clan del Golfo is the leading perpetrator of child recruitment in the Northern, Northeastern, and Bajo Cauca subregions.

The findings paint a bleak picture of post-accord Colombia. Far from ushering in a period of enduring peace, the years following the 2016 agreement have seen the continued victimization of children by emerging and reorganized armed groups.

The report also contextualizes the current crisis by revisiting the scale of recruitment during the armed conflict. Over the course of the war, at least 18,667 minors were recruited by the FAR before its demobilization. Of these, 53% were between the ages of 15 and 17, and 30% were under the age of 15.

Despite the demobilization of FARC’s leadership, splinter groups and other criminal networks have quickly moved to fill territorial voids and exploit children for military advantage. The UIA’s Risk Monitoring Mechanism continues to document this phenomenon across multiple departments, underscoring how the practice of recruitment has not ended but evolved.

In its conclusions, JEP warns that “the internet has become a recruitment battlefield,” demanding new forms of prevention and oversight. It also calls on the Colombian government of President Gustavo Petro to implement urgent digital literacy programs, strengthen cyber-monitoring of recruitment propaganda, and invest in community-based strategies to reach at-risk youth before they are targeted by illegal groups.

The tribunal also urges social media companies to work more closely with authorities and civil society to identify and take down accounts being used to exploit minors. “Colombia cannot afford to allow another generation of children to be lost to the cycle of violence,” the report warns. “The mechanisms of war may have changed, but the damage inflicted on young lives is as devastating as ever.”