Why Colombia’s Armed Groups Are Turning to TikTok | #childpredator | #kidsaftey | #childsaftey

The TikTok videos can look like the familiar displays of money, music and bravado that fill social-media feeds.

One shows a man’s hands holding a stack of cash. On his finger is a ring bearing the initials of Colombia’s National Liberation Army, the ELN. Beneath the video, users ask how they can join. Another takes viewers into what appears to be a guerrilla training camp in the mountains of southwestern Colombia, where 27 people dressed in military clothing work on a structure. Other videos show weapons, uniforms and bundles of cash, mixed with scenes of training, meals and downtime, often set to narcocorridos and other music romanticizing life inside armed groups.

Taken together, they can look like a social-media recruiting campaign for Colombia’s guerrillas and criminal organizations.

But there is something else in the videos: Children.

In one video examined by Human Rights Watch, a girl who appears to be a child poses with a radio and the hashtag #farfromhome while a narcocorrido plays. Another apparent child wears military clothing and an armband. And in a video posted in December, a girl uses a song with the lyric “At 14, I got involved and joined the guerrillas,” while adding text saying she was 13 when she joined.

They are not merely appearing in the propaganda. Children are among the people Colombia’s armed groups are trying to recruit.

According to Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace, 44% of children that joined armed groups in 2025 were recruited through social media, an extraordinary measure of how one of the darkest practices of Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict is being transformed for the social-media generation.

Human Rights Watch researchers identified 52 TikTok accounts and 37 posts that encouraged users to join armed groups or portrayed life inside them positively. Together, the accounts had more than 85,000 followers. Some videos received more than 250,000 views and 50,000 likes.

Researchers also identified 20 Facebook accounts reaching more than 15,000 followers. Some appeared to facilitate recruitment by inviting interested users to make private contact or even offering transportation to people willing to join.

Some appeals were remarkably explicit. Human Rights Watch monitored three posts apparently connected to FARC dissident groups and the Gulf Clan that sought new combatants in the areas of Catatumbo, Cauca and Tolima. Several remained online for more than a month and accumulated dozens of comments from people expressing interest. One Facebook recruitment post offered to cover transportation costs.

The groups have also learned to disguise themselves online. FARC becomes “F4RC,” ELN becomes “3LN,” while combinations of ninja, clover and money emojis — and even national flags whose colors resemble those of particular armed organizations — can signal affiliations while attempting to evade platform controls.

And simply looking at the material may lead to more of it.

After Human Rights Watch researchers viewed content associated with armed groups, the social-media account they were using began receiving recommendations for additional content and suggestions to follow profiles linked to organizations including the Gulf Clan and FARC dissidents. The rights organization said the experiment suggests recommendation algorithms may direct users who engage with armed-group content toward more of it.

The online recruiting campaign is one dimension of a much broader resurgence in child recruitment documented in a new Human Rights Watch investigation.

At least 1,500 children have been reported recruited in Colombia since 2021, with available official figures showing cases rising sharply since 2023. Nearly half were Indigenous children, although Indigenous people account for only about 4% of Colombia’s population. More than 30% were between 10 and 14 years old.

“Armed groups in Colombia are recruiting children with impunity, as protection systems are failing, and social media platforms have become a more effective recruiting ground,” Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said in releasing the report. “Every child recruited is indicative of a government failure.”

The findings emerge from an investigation that included 184 interviews with government officials, humanitarian workers, Indigenous and community leaders, children’s rights organizations and child protection officers, as well as meetings with children who had been recruited or were at risk. Researchers also reviewed government data and scores of social-media accounts and posts linked to armed-group propaganda and recruitment.

‘Armed influencers’

A prosecutor in Cauca described one of the new recruiting tactics as the work of “armed influencers.”

On TikTok, he told Human Rights Watch, they post videos dressed in camouflage, flaunting money and weapons to project power and attract potential recruits, including children. On Facebook, he said, armed groups sometimes approach children directly with the “opportunity” to join.

Human Rights Watch also received what it described as credible allegations of children being contacted through direct messages and offered opportunities to join armed groups elsewhere in Colombia.

Meta and TikTok told Human Rights Watch their policies prohibit violent and criminal organizations from using their platforms for recruitment and described measures they use to identify and remove prohibited material.

After the rights group provided ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, with 35 accounts in July, the company said it removed all of them. Researchers subsequently identified another 17 accounts publishing substantially similar material. Meta said it removed 16 Facebook profiles flagged by Human Rights Watch; researchers later found four additional accounts with similar content.

TikTok told Human Rights Watch that it proactively prevents illegal armed groups and organized criminal groups from using the platform to target, exploit or recruit minors. The company said that from January through March 2026, it removed 99.4% of Colombian content that violated its policy on violent and hateful organizations before users reported it.

Meta said it prohibits organizations including the ELN, Gulf Clan and FARC dissident groups from maintaining a presence on its platforms and continually adjusts enforcement as groups develop methods of evading detection.

Peace agreement did not end recruiting

The 2016 peace agreement disarmed the FARC, then Colombia’s dominant guerrilla organization, and helped bring an end to one chapter of more than half a century of armed conflict.

But armed organizations remained or moved into territory the FARC abandoned. Today, FARC dissident factions, the ELN, the Gulf Clan and other armed and criminal groups compete for control of territory and illicit economies.

Children have become part of that competition.

Former FARC dissident groups accounted for 74% of child recruitment cases documented by the Ombudsperson’s Office between 2021 and 2025, according to Human Rights Watch’s analysis.

The problem is heavily concentrated in Cauca, the mountainous southwestern department that has become one of the centers of Colombia’s continuing armed violence. Nearly 57% of children reported recruited nationally were from Cauca.

The concentration also helps explain the extraordinary toll on Indigenous communities.

Nearly half of children reported recruited between 2021 and 2025 were Indigenous. Cauca alone accounted for 80% of Indigenous children reported recruited nationwide.

“They are taking away an entire generation,” one Indigenous leader told Human Rights Watch. “They are putting the existence of our community and culture at risk.”

Girls accounted for roughly 40% of recruited children, and their share of reported cases increased between 2021 and 2025. Recruiting children under 15 can constitute a war crime under international law.

$1,000 per child

Social media has created a new recruiting tool, but the vulnerabilities armed groups exploit are much older.

Recruiters take advantage of poverty, social exclusion, domestic violence and limited access to education, offering money, clothing, cellphones, status or the promise of a better life.

In Cauca and Valle del Cauca, members of the EMC — a coalition of FARC dissident factions — allegedly pay civilian recruiters to persuade Indigenous children to leave their communities with promises of jobs on coca plantations or farms, according to a prosecutor and an Ombudsperson’s Office official interviewed by Human Rights Watch.

The recruiters can receive up to $1,000 per child, with the amount depending on factors including the gender, height, physical characteristics and the difficulty of transporting them, the officials said. Once the children arrive, they may stop receiving the promised money and instead be forced into the armed group’s activities.

Recruitment can reach inside schools.

A 16-year-old boy in Arauca told Human Rights Watch that classmates who had joined an armed group returned to his school two or three times a week to persuade other students to join.

In March, a TikTok video reviewed by researchers showed at least four people in camouflage and EMC armbands distributing notebooks to uniformed children at what the post identified as a school in El Plateado, Cauca.

And at boarding schools, armed groups may make the initial contact online.

“They do not waste time,” an Indigenous authority told Human Rights Watch. “They contact them beforehand through social media, confirm their interest, and when they arrive at the school, the children stand up and leave with them.”

After they join

What may appear online as money, camaraderie and adventure can become something very different once a child enters an armed organization.

A 16-year-old girl interviewed by Human Rights Watch was walking home from school at night in southeastern Colombia when armed men took her.

She remained with the group for about a week before fighting erupted. Amid the confusion, she escaped and eventually surrendered to the Colombian Army.

“I thought I’d never see my mom again,” she said.

Armed groups frequently transfer recruited children away from their home regions, isolating them from their families and making escape more difficult, according to Human Rights Watch.

Some receive military training. Others gather intelligence, serve as messengers, provide medical care, guard hostages, participate in drug trafficking or work as bodyguards for commanders. Children are also being used to handle drones. Girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence, including being forced into relationships with commanders.

Leaving does not necessarily end the danger. Children returning to areas where the groups remain active can face threats, displacement or recruitment again.

Colombia’s system can also produce radically different outcomes depending on which organization recruited them.

Children recruited by groups officially recognized as parties to the armed conflict can enter a specialized government program, receive reparations and be recognized as victims. Those used by criminal organizations not legally considered parties to the conflict may instead enter a general child-protection program — and can potentially face prosecution in Colombia’s juvenile justice system.

“Many children end up being prosecuted by the state instead of being protected,” the director of a civil society organization working on recruitment prevention told Human Rights Watch.

Few convictions

Perhaps the starkest measure of Colombia’s response is found in its courts.

Between 2016 and 2025, the Attorney General’s Office opened 3,947 preliminary inquiries into alleged unlawful recruitment.

Only 45 — roughly 1% — progressed to a formal investigation. Twenty-five reached trial. Nine ended in convictions.

Human Rights Watch said it identified only one ruling during the decade against people accused of ordering child recruitment. Most convictions instead appeared to involve lower-level participants.

Families may fear retaliation if they report a child’s recruitment. Some distrust authorities or believe filing a complaint will do little to bring their children home. Prosecutors face security risks and limited resources, while recruitment conducted through social media presents new challenges involving digital evidence and accounts that can disappear quickly.

In some communities scarred by generations of violence, recruitment has become so normalized that it can even be perceived as a job.

“Children and communities tend to perceive recruitment as employment, which is why they do not report it,” the director of a foundation working to prevent recruitment told Human Rights Watch.

Colombia has established programs to prevent recruitment and assist children who escape, but Human Rights Watch concluded that they have not kept pace with the changing conflict. The principal national prevention policy dates to 2018 and lacks a clear action plan and dedicated budget, while state and municipal governments face shortages of money and personnel.

The weaknesses have left some of the most dangerous work to communities themselves.

In October 2025, members of Colombia’s Indigenous Guard — an unarmed community organization — rescued two girls, 14 and 15, who had been taken by the EMC from their community in Timba, Cauca.

As the guard drove them toward safety, armed men opened fire on their vehicles, slashed their tires and took the teenagers again.

“There was nothing we could do,” one guard member told Human Rights Watch.

The girls were released five days later after the case generated national pressure.

Human Rights Watch said Indigenous organizations and other community groups have increasingly taken the lead in protecting and even rescuing children in areas without meaningful state protection. Some community leaders and Indigenous Guard members have been killed in retaliation.

Human Rights Watch is calling on the new administration of President Abelardo de la Espriella to strengthen prevention programs, provide local authorities with more resources, improve investigations of armed-group commanders and work more closely with Indigenous and community organizations. It also wants social-media companies to audit recommendation systems and ensure algorithms do not amplify recruitment material.

But the organization argues that Colombia cannot prosecute or fight its way out of the problem without addressing what makes children vulnerable to recruiters.

Colombia’s Truth Commission documented at least 16,238 children forcibly recruited between 1990 and 2017 and estimated that the actual number could have been as high as 40,828.

The FARC, responsible for the largest number of documented cases during the earlier conflict, formally laid down its weapons nearly a decade ago.

Child recruitment did not disappear with it. It fragmented among new armed groups, adapted to new technologies and found a new generation of vulnerable children.

“Stopping child recruitment will demand much more than just soldiers on the ground,” Goebertus said. “Children at risk of being recruited urgently need opportunities to study and make a living.”