The right to liberty and security
In addition, international human rights law strongly
discourages deprivation of liberty of children alleged,
accused or recognised as having infringed penal law.
That raises the question of whether or not detention of
children who are not in conflict with criminal law can be
justified at all on immigration-related grounds. Immigration detention of children is contrary to international
human rights law, in the opinion of the UN Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention, the UN Committee on
the Rights of the Child and the Special Rapporteur on
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
FRA opinion 2
To protect the right to liberty and security
(Article 6 of the Charter), EU Member States
are encouraged to introduce more favourable
provisions in national laws – as envisaged in
Article 4 (3) of the Return Directive and Article 4
of the Reception Conditions Directive – either
prohibiting or further restricting the possibility
to detain children for immigration purposes. This
would significantly contribute to avoiding the risk
of arbitrary detention of children.
Concerning asylum detention, the current reform
of the asylum acquis is an opportunity for
EU legislators to take a stronger stand against
child detention.
EU Member States should systematically collect
disaggregate data on children in immigration
detention, while the European Commission
should encourage the comparability of such data
through Eurostat.
31
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