Specially Protected Persons in Combat Situations (new title)

[M-A Lagrange]

Once, the French COS were interviewed about the same question: what to do in front of child soldier. The answer was interesting: we have to remember that we have children in front of us but we have to not forget that they are soldiers too.
The IHL gives a clear line: children are not to be soldiers and are protected both as legitimate target and troops.
In the case of being confronted to child soldiers (Mike will clarify this much better than me), norm is that you try to restrain a maximum. Anyways, the one who is really guilty is the one who recruits children to be soldiers, not the one being confronted and has to defend.
A lot of interesting stuff on the Save The Children and ICRC web sites.

[jmm99]

One is the rule based on self-defense. That rule is always in play and permits killing a hostile threat - an armed, hostile threat from a child is the same legally as an armed hostile threat from an adult.

In both of the movie scenes, the child soldiers were in attack mode against the Union cavalry in one case and the Red Guards in the other (a less aggressive attack in the latter case, but an advance none the less). So, the always in effect self-defense rule applied in both cases.

Both movies are set in civil wars. Since both groups of child soldiers involved uniformed military forces, the cadets could be regarded as designated hostile forces as to which kill or capture would apply regardless of an armed, hostile threat or not.

I seriously cited the two movies as examples.

Regards

Mike