CSPA Implementation Tracker

According to the U.S. State Department, Sudanese government armed forces – including the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and Popular Defense Forces (PDF) – as well as allied militias that have received government support – including the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in Opposition (SPLA-IO) – are all alleged to have recruited and used child soldiers. The RSF reportedly recruited 87 children aged 14 to 17 as recently as May 2019 to disperse anti-government crowds. Many children lack documents verifying their age, a fact that is exploited by armed groups to recruit and retain child soldiers. In 2018, the government of Sudan signed a UN Action Plan to prevent the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict. In 2018, UNICEF reported that Sudan had increased the transparency of its reporting, allowed UNICEF to conduct verification and monitoring visits to RSF and SAF facilities to identify and demobilize child soldiers, improved its processes for identifying and providing care to child soldiers from rebel groups, and increased anti-trafficking training for judicial and law enforcement officials. There were no reports of government forces or allied militias recruiting or using child soldiers between April 2020 and March 2021, and Sudan was subsequently removed from the CSPA list in 2021.

Between April 2021 and March 2022, an international organization reported that a girl was abducted and detained in sexual slavery on a Sudanese Armed Forces base. Although the U.S. State Department noted that this “meets the legal standards for recruitment and use of a child soldier by the SAF,” it did not include Sudan in its 2022 CSPA list.

For more information, see the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report and Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. More information on the situation in Sudan can also be found in the UN Secretary-General’s annual report on Children and Armed Conflict and country-specific report on Sudan.