The problem of recognizing child soldiers as POWs

Over the past few decades, the phenomenon of child soldiers has attracted the sustained attention of governments, international organizations and civil society. The focus has been on gaining a better understanding of the extent and reasons for this sad reality, before drawing up standards designed to protect child soldiers. The international standards thus developed, initially rooted in international human rights law, targeted governments and non-state armed groups as much as individuals, and set out the prohibition on recruiting and using child soldiers. But all these standards have remained theoretical, and thousands of children continue to be recruited in the eastern DRC. This is why we thought that the status of child soldiers, once clearly defined, would enable them to benefit from a double preferential treatment, namely that reserved for POWs under IHL prescriptions in their capacity as captured combatants or hostages, on the one hand, and that reserved for children by the Geneva Convention: special protection in their capacity as vulnerable persons, on the other.