#1 to several years of prison, perhaps 5-10 years, thus not necessarily more than what they would get in Europe. As a result, it needs to be well understood that non-repatriation does not imply that these individuals will never be released or able to return to Europe. The only question we should ask ourselves then is whether we are willing to abandon any form of control on European foreign fighters, at the risk to see them come back in some years even more radicalised, or if we’d rather “take back control” as it is popular to say these days, to ensure the proper prosecution, detention and rehabilitation of foreign fighters in Europe. Repatriation appears to us as the most sensible option, for security, legal and ethical reasons. A growing number of voices have publicly called for the repatriation of all European children and their mothers, and even of ISIS fighters. Since last year, some of these calls were unsurprisingly made by family members of individuals stranded in the region, or by child protection agencies. In some cases, notably in France and Belgium, these calls were joined by some victims of terrorism. Some key counter-terrorism practitioners have also argued publicly in favour of the repatriation of ISIS fighters and their families, such as French anti-terrorist magistrate David De Pas,73 the Federal Prosecutor Frédéric Van Leeuw and the former Head of the counter-terrorism fusion centre (CUTA) Paul Van Tigchelt in Belgium,74 or the former MI6 Counterterrorism Director Richard Barrett in the UK.75 Some politicians have also publicly called for the repatriation of children with their mothers, notably a group of 76 Parliamentarians and Senators in France,76 and a group of senior conservative MPs in the UK.77 The repatriation of children should never have been an issue. They are victims and protected under international law. The majority of them are below 5 years old, and they have every chance to fully resocialise in their home countries as the experience of previous repatriations demonstrate. In contrast, the more time they spend in the camps, the more traumatized they become, and the more difficult their resocialisation will be. As we argued more than two years ago, children are not “ticking time bombs”, but they could become ones if we do not bring them back. 78 Moreover, children should be repatriated with their mothers, to avoid the traumatic separation of a child from his mother. The reported attempts of some governments to repatriate children without their mothers is morally reprehensible, and practically counter-productive. Furthermore, it should be remembered that many women are considered to be “deradicalized”, “disengaged” or “not a threat” by European intelligence services, and their repatriation should therefore not be a major concern. 79 Some other women are considered a threat, but they could be properly prosecuted and detained in Europe, certainly in much more secure conditions than they would be in Syria or Iraq. Finally, it is arguably also safer to repatriate male fighters, as argued by the key counterterrorism practitioners mentioned above. Many foreign fighters have already been convicted in absentia, and could even be prosecuted for more serious crimes (such as crimes against humanity) if European governments decided to prioritise this approach. European penitentiary administrations are now well experienced in managing terrorist offenders, as they have handled thousands of them over the past years, so they could very much deal with a few more returnees. The capacity and the expertise is there; it is the political will that is missing. This said, it should be recognised that whereas some countries have been particularly successful at prosecuting returning foreign fighters, such as France or Belgium, other countries have been almost unable to bring charges against them, like EGMONT Royal Institute for International Relations 8