European legal and policy framework on immigration detention of children In Mayotte, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, the standards used for other French administrative detention facilities did not apply until May 2017. The law required only separate accommodation and special equipment to accommodate families.296 For a number of years, conditions in the administrative detention facility in Mayotte were significantly below standard. Facilities were criticised for the lack of facilities adapted to children, including very young children.297 The detention centre in Mayotte hosts far more children every year than any other in an EU Member State. In 2015, it held some 4,378 children (compared with 116 on the French mainland) and in 2014 some 5,582 (compared with 110 on the mainland). At the end of 2015 a new detention facility was created, replacing the highly criticised substandard facility.298 regime:302 it is surrounded by barbed wire, all windows are barred, staff wear uniforms and carry arms and truncheons.303 Handcuffs or special belts are systematically used on parents during transportation, including if very small children accompany their parents.304 Like other detainees, children are allowed out of doors for one hour twice a day.305 Children may go to the small playground with their mothers under police supervision.306 One characteristic of detention facilities adapted to host children is child-friendly spaces. The information that the Slovenian police provided to FRA illustrates what child-friendly spaces could entail. In the Slovenian Aliens Centre, child-friendly spaces include a common area with TV and table tennis, an area for leisure games and for organised educational and creative activities, and a playroom with toys for small children. 7.1.2. Non-specialised facilities The existence of dedicated spaces for children does not necessarily mean that facilities are child-friendly, as they are often like prisons. For example, in 2015, the Hungarian Commissioner for Human Rights noted that children at the Békéscsaba asylum detention facility could use the playroom only under the supervision of armed guards and social workers;299 of the 155 armed security staff and 24 police officers guarding the facility, only eight were women.300 In Slovakia, the Sečovce facility created child-friendly rooms or living rooms but the number of detained families increased and overcrowded the facility, so the living rooms were used to accommodate families instead. No indoor playrooms were available during the peak period of summer 2015.301 The facility also applies a strict prison 296 France, Code of Entry and Residence of Foreigners and of the Right to Asylum (Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile), Article R 553–3. 297 France, Assfam, Forum Réfugiés, France terre d’asile, La Cimade et l’Ordre de Malte (2015), Centres and establishments of administrative detention 2014 report (Centres et locaux de rétention administrative). 298 Ibid, p. 60. 299 Hungary, Commissioner for Fundamental Rights (2015), Report of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights in case AJB-366/2015 (Alapvető Jogok Biztosának jelentése az AJB366/2015. számú ügyben), pp. 12–15. 300 Ibid, pp. 5–8. 301 Slovakia, Human Rights League, February 2016. 76 Monitoring bodies have visited detention facilities that host children, and they have raised a number of other issues, for example overcrowding at the Daugavpils facility in Latvia which also affect the situation of children.307 Limited space per child is also an issue. For instance, Polish rules on guarded centres assign a minimum space of four square metres per child.308 Most Member States apply the safeguards of the Return Directive and the Reception Conditions Directive to avoid detaining children in non-specialised facilities. However, these standards have a relatively low threshold. Detention in non-specialised facilities may be allowed by law and/or occur in practice because people wrongly identify children as adults. In Lithuania, two Afghan minors were detained in a regular prison together with unrelated adults for over four months, in spite of their asylum-seeking status, on the mistaken premise that they were adults. The Supreme Court of Lithuania found 302 European Parliament, Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (2007), The conditions in centres for third country national (detention camps, open centres as well as transit centres and transit zones) with a particular focus on provisions and facilities for persons with special needs in the 25 EU member states, Luxembourg, Brussels, European Parliament, p. 183. 303 Human Rights League, Forum for Human Rights (2016) The Immigration Detention of Families with Minor Children and the Situation of Unaccompanied Minors in Slovakia, Alternative Report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights Of The Child for Consideration of the Combined Third to Fifth Periodic Reports of Slovakia under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, p. 4. 304 Ibid, p. 6. 305 Police Detention Centre Sečovce, Internal rules of detention centre for foreigners Sečovce (Vnútorný poriadok útvaru policajného zaistenia pre cudzincov Sečovce), Article 1 (not public, obtained by a request for information). 306 Ibid, Article6/3. 307 Latvia, Ombudsman (Tiesībsargs) (2016) Ombudsman of the Republic of Latvia Annual Report 2015 (Latvijas Republikas tiesībsarga 2015.gada ziņojums). 308 Poland, Ministry of Internal Affairs, ‘Appendix to the Regulation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on guarded centres and arrests for foreigners’ (Załącznik do Rozporządzenia Ministra Spraw Wewnętrznych z dnia 24 kwietnia 2015 r. w sprawie strzeżonych ośrodków i aresztów dla cudzoziemców), 24 April 2015, Article 11 (1) (b).