From Jungles to Algorithms: Child Recruitment in Colombia’s Digital War

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A simple TikTok search leads one down a rabbit hole of videos where members of the Colombian guerrilla romanticise a life in the Cauca Mountains surrounded by conflict, drugs, death, and violence. Beneath these videos, comment sections are filled with supporters offering words of encouragement and asking how they can get involved. Some users even go as far as publicly expressing their desire to join these revolutionary groups through trends, with one writing: “Someday my family will understand my dream of being a guerrilla fighter”. Even more alarming is the fact that many of these online interactions come from minors, evident through context clues in their profiles or, in many cases, through explicit remarks in other public videos. The problem, therefore, is not merely the growing online sympathy for armed groups that justify the disproportionate use of violence and drug trafficking, but that a significant share of these online interactions comes from minors, the most vulnerable to manipulation that ultimately leads to their demise.

Colombia is no stranger to the involvement of minors in armed violence; it’s an unfortunate part of its history as a state in ongoing conflict. The roots of systematic recruitment can be traced back to Colombia’s era of “La Violencia” (1940s to 50s), when armed groups exploited minors’ reduced criminal liability under Colombian law. By recruiting children to carry out violent acts, guerrilla officials could achieve their objectives while insulating themselves from the full legal repercussions. Notably, during peak violence periods, minors reportedly made up about 30 to 40 percent of some armed groups and were often tasked with the most dangerous roles. Despite the formal end of “La Violencia,” minors’ involvement in guerrilla groups persisted. Child recruitment continued through the intensification of armed conflict in the late twentieth century, including during the height of the “war on drugs” in the 1980s, and persisted into the 2000s.

To grasp why recruitment remains a leading issue in the country, it helps to understand Colombia’s broader context of conflict. From the mid-20th century until today, armed groups and guerrillas have operated in fragmented landscapes where state presence has historically been weak, including regions such as Cauca, Choco and Norte de Santander. These groups, including the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) dissidents, have long financed themselves through drug cultivation and smuggling. These organisations seek to attract members with promises of economic stability and security, targeting children who have been exposed to harsh childhoods.

In 2016, President Juan Manuel Santos signed a historic peace agreement with Colombia’s most prominent guerrilla group, the FARC. The accord was designed to address the structural causes of conflict, with a particular focus on rural development, political participation, and the inclusion of communities historically neglected by authorities. During his 2016 Nobel Prize Lecture, Santos pronounced the accord as “the first in the world that has placed the victims and their rights at the centre of the solution”. By empowering Colombia’s most vulnerable and promising a strengthened state presence in rural areas, the agreement aimed, among other goals, to reduce the incentives and opportunities for armed groups to recruit civilians, especially minors. Nonetheless, nearly a decade later, the aims of the peace accord are yet to materialise. Santos himself has argued, including during his last visit to LSE, that subsequent governments failed to fully implement the agreement and consolidate peace in the territories most affected by violence.

According to Colombia’s Defensoría del Pueblo (Ombudsman), between January and June 2025, at least 55 children were recruited into guerrilla groups, most of them in the department of Cauca. These figures build on trends already seen in 2024, when approximately 578 cases of child recruitment were recorded nationwide, with 367 of those occurring in Cauca. UN News has warned that minors are increasingly present in armed encampments, noting that guerrilla groups’ growing use of social media has become a significant factor facilitating recruitment.

Nonetheless, the resurgence of child recruitment cannot be explained solely by the incomplete implementation of the peace accord. It must also be understood as a response to changing social and technological conditions. With the increasing access to phones and the internet, social media platforms have turned into hot spots to lure minors into guerrilla groups. Armed groups now use TikTok, Facebook, and WhatsApp to project an image of empowerment, belonging, and economic opportunity, hiding the coercion behind the carefully curated videos and informal online interaction. This form of recruitment also allows groups to reach minors directly and discreetly, amounting to more minors contacted in an easier and far more difficult to detect process. A study conducted by Indepaz using an AI profile to pose as a young girl was able to find 85 different accounts linked to armed groups, and was contacted by multiple of these. Despite testing the guerrilla’s social media presence, the Colombian government has yet to formally address the issue.

Under international humanitarian law and Colombian policy, the presence of minors in guerrilla encampments severely restricts the state’s ability to carry out military operations, due to the risk of harming the children involved. Armed groups have demonstrated that they are well aware of this constraint. By recruiting minors, groups such as Estado Mayor Central not only secure new members but also gain strategic protection from possible state attacks. In this way, child online recruitment is now both a veiled human rights violation and a tactical advantage.

Therefore, what emerges from a decade since the signing of the peace agreement is not a post-conflict Colombia, but a conflict that has become less visible and more dispersed. Child recruitment is not the same process it once was; it has become a quiet operation hidden through an algorithm, attacking through messages, likes, and comments. Colombia’s struggle reflects the global challenge in conflict and post-conflict societies, as well as how digital technologies are reshaping war. International organisations, including UNICEF, have called for stronger digital governance frameworks in order to avoid more of these cases, but implementation remains uneven, especially in countries with limited resources. The persistence of minor involvement in the conflict also reveals the strategic failure in Colombia’s peace-building project, showing how, despite the form of violence changing, many of the structural conditions that upheld it have not. As long as armed groups continue to govern spaces abandoned by the state, both territorial and digital, Colombian children will remain among the conflict’s most vulnerable targets.

Written by Mariana Quevedo-Ardila

Edited by Catalina Pitre