A/74/136 39. Almost half the world population lives in the 70 States in which existing laws criminalize conducts on the basis of sexual orientation. Children belonging to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community are more likely to be arrested and detained for status offences, in particular for sexual activity and expressions of sexual orientations and gender identities. LGBTI children are overrepresented in child justice facilities and health-related institutions. They are usually placed in gender-inappropriate detention facilities and are particularly vulnerable to sexual and other forms of violence. V. Situations of children deprived of liberty A. Administration of justice 40. A comprehensive set of international human rights standards is testimony to a strong legal and political commitment by the international community to prevent deprivation of liberty of children in the administration of justice. That legal framework has already contributed to the establishment of specialized child justice systems, the adoption of non-custodial solutions and a decrease in the number of children deprived of liberty. Nevertheless, there are still at least 410,000 children held in detention every year in remand centres and prisons. This does not include an estimated 1 million children held every year in police custod y. On the basis of the State responses to the questionnaire, it is not possible to provide an evidence -based figure for the number of children held in police custody on any given day. Nevertheless, research for the study proves that detention remains the s ad reality of an estimated 160,000–250,000 children in remand centres and prisons worldwide on any given day. 41. These data suggest that detention in the context of the administration of justice is still widely overused. There are a number of reasons for this phenomenon, starting before and going beyond the criminal justice system (e.g., lack of effective child welfare systems; lack of support for family environments; excessive criminalization; low minimum age of criminal responsibility; harsh sentencing; discrimination; socioeconomic reasons; lack of resources in the administration of justice). 42. In times of globalization and complex changes in societies, there is an increased need to support families, communities, schools and child welfare systems. Instruments for structured inter-agency cooperation between the child welfare, social protection, education and health systems, law enforcement and the justice system, to build comprehensive child protection systems and implement prevention and early intervention policies, remain underdeveloped or ineffective. 43. Instead of prevention, States often rely on repressive and punitive policies that lead to excessive criminalization. Behaviours that are typical for children are criminalized as so-called “status offences”: children are charged and detained for truancy, running away from home, disobedience, underage drinking, consensual sexual activity between teenagers, “disruptive” behaviours and practices against traditions and morality. Despite encouragement by the Committee on the Rights of the Child to States to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years, over 120 States maintain the minimum age at below 14. 44. Legislation and practice allowing life imprisonment without possibility of release and capital and corporal punishment, still persist, despite their absolute prohibition under article 37 (a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Life sentences remain legal in 68 States, specifically in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Oceania. In the 110 States and territories which have no life sentence for children, the maximum sentence ranges from 3 to 50 years. In some cases, children have been 10/23 19-11838