CAT/C/71/D/900/2018 Eritrea would constitute a violation of article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.20 5.3 The complainant rejects the State party’s argument that the sole fact that he left his country illegally and then reached the age for enlistment does not mean that he can be classed as someone who avoided military service. According to the complainant, for the purposes of asylum, all that matters is whether the persecutor wishes to gain access to the person in question for one of the reasons listed in the relevant law. Before he left Eritrea, the complainant had dropped out of school and was therefore being looked for by the military authorities. Although the official age for conscription is the age of majority, that is, 18 years, the Government of Eritrea organizes round-ups in villages on a regular basis in order to forcibly recruit young persons from the age of 15 or 16 years, especially those who are not enrolled in school.21 5.4 The complainant also rejects the Federal Administrative Court’s argument that the concepts of slavery and servitude are not applicable to the national regime in Eritrea.22 In the case M.G. v. Switzerland, the Committee explicitly agreed with the commission of inquiry on human rights in Eritrea that, given the indefinite duration of military service, there were reasonable grounds to believe that it constituted no less than the enslavement of a whole population and therefore a crime against humanity.23 5.5 To date, the Swiss authorities have not assessed the situation faced by young persons who are forced to return to Eritrea after they have reached the age for recruitment into the national service. Simply by leaving Eritrea illegally when they were coming up to the age for military recruitment, they had shown from the outset that they were unwilling to perform military service. 5.6 As regards the length of the proceedings before the State Secretariat for Migration, the fact that the complainant’s guardians did not raise the issue cannot, by any means, be held against him. Moreover, when he was a minor, the complainant unfortunately did not receive any legal assistance that would have enabled him to prepare for the hearing on his reasons for seeking asylum. 5.7 The complainant maintains that his mother tongue is Saho and that his hearings should therefore have been conducted in this language. At the hearing concerning his reasons for seeking asylum, he was told that there were no Saho interpreters available in Switzerland and that one would have to be called in from Germany (if he is not mistaken), which would delay the proceedings. That was why he agreed to have a Tigrinya interpreter. The fact that he said he could understand the interpreter when he was asked just once, at the very beginning of the hearing, whether he could, does not prove that he was actually able to understand the questions that were translated by the interpreter and to make himself understood by the interpreter. The personal data sheet, which states that his mother tongue is Tigrinya, was clearly filled in without his knowledge, since it was not signed by him. The sheet also misstates his religion and date of birth. 5.8 In his additional comments of 6 December 2019, the complainant cites a report written by the State Secretariat for Migration and published by the European Asylum Support Office in September 2019.24 According to this report, minors in Eritrea were being forcibly recruited for military service, the treatment of recruits in Eritrean prisons had not improved, the fate of most persons who had been returned to Eritrea was unknown, and there were reports that many of them had been sent to a prison near Teseney, where torture had been reported. 20 21 22 23 24 10 See also “Report of the detailed findings of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea” (A/HRC/29/CRP.1), para. 1264, available on the website of the Commission of Inquiry (www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/coieritrea/pages/reportcoieritrea.aspx). Proclamation on National Service (No. 82/1995), 23 October 1995, arts. 14 (2) and (3); and Human Rights Watch, “They Are Making Us into Slaves, Not Educating Us” – How Indefinite Conscription Restricts Young People’s Rights, Access to Education in Eritrea (August 2019), pp. 46–50. A/HRC/41/53, paras. 28, 30 and 74; A/HRC/38/50; and A/HRC/RES/38/15, para. 6 (f). M.G. v. Switzerland (CAT/C/65/D/811/2017), para. 7.3. European Asylum Support Office, Eritrea National Service, Exit, and Return – Country of Origin Information Report (September 2019). GE.21-13784