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The concept of prisoners of war (POWs) is relatively recent, with formal definitions established in the Hague Convention in 1907. POWs must be legitimate combatants and wear military uniform, and once captured, must not be abused. Some notable historical figures were POWs, and governments maintain POW/MIA offices to track down missing service members.
A prisoner of war or prisoner of war is an enemy combatant captured and held in times of war. Very specific rules govern who exactly is defined as a POW and how POWs are to be treated by their captors. For example, governments must inform each other when they take prisoners of war. Many governments maintain a POW/MIA office for the families of service members who have been captured or who have gone missing in wartime.
Humans have been waging war for thousands of years, but the concept of prisoners of war is actually quite recent. For most of human history, enemy combatants were either slaughtered on the battlefield by the victors or taken and enslaved to be used as a source of cheap manpower. Sometimes, former enemies were integrated into the society of the victors, especially if they possessed valuable skills, but generally they were still treated as second-class citizens.
By 1600, the concept of taking prisoners of war and ransoming them to their national governments was widespread enough to warrant the unilateral release of prisoners of war without ransom after conflicts ended. Governments began to realize the political potential of prisoners of war, recognizing that they could be used in a variety of ways, and in 1907 the Hague Convention established formal definitions for prisoners of war, with refinements added in 1929 during the Third Geneva Convention .
Under international law, a prisoner of war must be a legitimate combatant, wear military uniform, and can surrender or be captured, although some militaries explicitly forbid surrender by enemy troops. This excludes people such as armed militants, terrorists and guerrillas from the protections offered to prisoners of war. Once captured, the prisoner must not be abused and the local government must be notified. Prisoners may be released by prior agreement in wartime, or held until the end of the conflict and released unconditionally.
Some notable people in history were prisoners of war, such as George Washington, Winston Churchill and Jean-Paul Sartre. Others such as Kurt Vonnegut have written about their experiences as POWs, and some have become outspoken advocates of POWs and Persons Missing in Action (MIA) in military conflicts. In governments with POW/MIA offices, officials work regularly to track down missing POWs and service members, dispatching detectives to every corner of the globe to follow up on leads.
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