Turkey has recruited hundreds if not thousands of child soldiers into its militias, research by a Turkish-funded think-tank has inadvertently revealed.

The @setavakfi paper was hastily withdrawn after analysis by @DiweenHawezy exposed the extent of underage recruitment.

By comparing the answers to two different questions in a poll of 1500 Turkish-backed fighters, Ms. Hawezy found that an estimated 3.2% of respondents were underage when recruited.

This suggests at least a thousand child soldiers were recruited in 2017 alone.

The Syrian Democratic Forces have also faced criticism for recruiting child soldiers, with the @UN recently documenting 8 instances of underage recruitment from 2016 on.

SDF has recently demobilized scores and turned away hundreds of underage recruits: https://twitter.com/RojavaIC/status/1305834902361911296