A/HRC/22/59 29. A soldier who recently defected from a military base in an area where the majority of the population comes from the Alawi sect, with which many of the highest officials in the Government and security forces are associated, said that local young people would come and take weapons from the base. He believed that they were part of a Government affiliated militia. “Every day people came, fifty to a hundred. People would identify themselves with civilian IDs [no regular soldiers have civilian IDs]. Some of them were aged 16. When I saw them I asked, ‘What are you doing here?’ They answered, ‘We are here to fight as volunteers.’” Recruits received one week’s weapons training, or no training at all. 30. Kinship groups, called houses (Arabic buyut, singular bayt) are used to identify sectarian affiliation and loyalty, and the use of kinship groups may lead to the recruitment of children. One refugee who had witnessed the start of a house-to-house attack by Government affiliated militia on Deir Baalbeh, a largely Sunni area in Homs said that many of the attackers were drawn from Alawite and Shi’a areas nearby, and he listed the buyut from which they were drawn. He said that the youngest attackers were 15 or 16 years of age. This recruitment takes place in a society that has been rapidly impoverished by conflict – some people can afford only one meal a day. Participation in Government affiliated militia brings immediate cash rewards, payable by shift or by month, according to different observers. 31. The commission has collected accounts of the use of under-age children as informers. One former soldier who defected to an anti-Government armed group said that the youngest informers used by the government were 12 years old. Some of these young informers are caught and detained in prisons run by anti-Government armed groups. One 16 year old who was probably his family’s main breadwinner, was reportedly paid 5,000 Syrian pounds a month. All parties to the conflict punish spies and informers severely, often with judicial or extra-judicial execution. 32. Using children under 15 for active participation in hostilities is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and “active participation” covers activities such as scouting, spying, sabotage and the use of children as decoys or couriers. Findings II. Anti-Government armed groups A. Unlawful attacks 33. Children have been killed in many of the recent explosions in Syria’s larger cities over the reporting period. Reports of multiple instances of children killed by snipers were received (see A/HRC/22/59, annex XI). As all parties to the conflict employ snipers, it is frequently unclear which party is responsible for any given child’s death. B. Sexual violence 34. The threat of sexual violence is often implied in the abduction of women and girls. An FSA soldier stated that the FSA had abducted the mother and daughters of a sniper who was part of a Government affiliated militia, in Dara’a in late 2012. The sniper was detained by the Government in order to prevent him from surrendering to the FSA; the women were reportedly released unharmed. Another FSA soldier stated that four members of the FSA 84 GE.13-10627