 Current Iranian law officially prohibits the recruitment of those under 16.During the Iran–Iraq War, children were drafted into the Basij army where, according to critics of the Iranian government, they "were sent to the front as waves of human shields".Christopher Hitchens has claimed that Iranians "lost maybe a million and a half of their kids that way", including due to machine gun fire and when clearing minefields and barbed wire, a job given to children so that older troops could pass.