CHAPTER 5 VIEWS AND PERSPECTIVES OF CHILDREN DEPRIVED OF LIBERTY Others identified the benefits of community-based diversions: ‘If I were outside and did some professional training, I would earn money which would put things right. Because the more you last here, the more you will come back here’. (M/15-17/1:AFG) ‘Here we just eat and sleep; we want a place that will bring change in our lives’. (M/1316/1:APG) 4. Cross-cutting Themes In addition to the substantive rights issues highlighted by the participants, a number of cross-cutting themes emerged from the research, as follows: 4.1 Fear, Isolation, Harm and Trauma A key theme across a significant number of the consultation responses was isolation and fear. This was most evident in accounts of the early stages of detention and pre-detention, and the hostile environment of detention in police stations where children were often unable to associate with others and/or had to wait for long periods without information: ‘The first day seems like you will [be] isolated a long time and you will wait endlessly for nothing’. (M/15-18,1:EEG) Fear and confusion were heightened when children were detained initially with adults, and when they were provided with little information about length of stay: ‘I was detained with adults, who are older than me, feeling insecure most of the time, and I was severely beaten by the police and adult detainees’. (MF/12-18/1:AFG) In addition to the physical harm experienced by some children deprived of liberty, the above experiences clearly caused emotional harm. Further examples of emotional harm were also prevalent particularly through negative interactions with police or prison officers, including name calling and humiliating searches of girls:9 9 Statement of a child during a consultation in Burkina Faso (code AFG for Africa Group). 104