Since the early 1990s, the DRC has faced internal and sub-regional unrest and destabilisation, manifested in ethnic wars, social demands and armed conflicts. Indexed since the first Congo war, in 1996, as a country that recruits children into armed forces and groups, the DRC has since demonstrated its selflessness and its determination to prevent and put an end to this phenomenon, considered a "war crime" under the Statute of the International Criminal Court. To this end, the DRC has ratified and implemented the main international texts on the protection of children, particularly those affected by armed conflict; it has developed new legislative and structural frameworks favourable to better practice in preventing the recruitment of children into armed groups and, above all, it has set up numerous programmes and projects to protect Congolese children from being used in armed groups and to enable the demobilisation and social reintegration of children who have already been recruited.