Children were among the 39 slaves rescued from a 'troop-making' Shining Path rebel camp in Peruvian jungle where women were raped and gave birth to future soldiers.
Authorities rescued 26 children, plus women and elderly Peruvians - some of whom were kidnapped many decades ago - from the camp.
While women were impregnated in captivity, the children were forced to grow coca, from which cocaine can be made, until they were old enough for active duty.
The slaves were rescued from the Maoist Shining Path rebel camp in the so-called VRAEM area in the largely untouched jungle, which serves as a home base for the remnant forces of the insurgency.
The government's Deputy Defence Minister, Ivan Vega, told Canal N television the children were aged between one and 14 years old.
He said it was a 'Shining Path troop-making camp' led by the group's self-proclaimed leader Jose Quispe Palomino.
'The women are made pregnant so that their babies will fill Shining Path's ranks,' Vega explained.
'The children are trained to care for coca growing until they are 12 to 14 when they go into Shining Path active duty.'
The elderly - many of whom were kidnapped as young people - were forced to grow subsistence food and coca leaves from which cocaine can be made, he added.
The government accuses Shining Path of working with drug traffickers to raise money.
Those rescued are being cared for at the Mazamari military base in Junin, and the minors will then be turned over to the Ministry of Women.
Shining Path is a guerrilla group which posed a major challenge to the Peruvian state in the 1980s and 1990s. It was largely defeated in the 1990s.
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