Military service is compulsory for all citizens between the ages of 18 and 30.1 Active service lasts eight months, with subsequent reserve training.2 There is no provision for conscientious objection or alternative service.3 Furthermore, human rights monitors document those cases reported to them of youths subjected to forced recruitment.4

Attached, is a photocopy of a passage of the Americas Watch 1987 Report, Human Rights in Honduras: Central America's Sideshow (Americas Watch: May, 1987), referring to forced conscription. No further information on the subject is available at the IRBDC at present.

1. Article 276 of the Constitution of Honduras.

2. Europa Yearbook 1988, (London: Europa Publications), p.1288.

3. Conscientious objection to military service, (United Nations, 1985), pp. 24, 27.

4. Human Rights in Honduras: Special Report on the Situation of Civil and Political Rights, (Tegucigalpa: Comision de Derechos Humanos - CODEH, January-June, 1988), p. 2.