5. Conclusions This short report sought to present the views and experiences of the 274 children deprived of liberty, who contributed to the Global Study. These experiences confirm the views of hundreds of children whom I had interviewed personally in all types of situations during my 18 fact-finding missions as UNSRT. Children have a right to express their views in matters that affect them and, as this study shows, even when deprived of their liberty, children are both capable and willing to do so. This is particularly significant in the challenging environment in which many of them were being consulted. The children who participated articulated clearly that children should not be deprived of liberty where possible. Rather than being concerned with their own experiences, they demonstrated an acute awareness of the social and emotional ‘gaps’ that they experienced when being away from their families and their communities. At times, this was expressed in feelings of loneliness, isolation, and longing for family. In this regard, they shared their feelings of confusion and disempowerment, especially when confronted with systems that they did not understand. At the same time, as the cross-cutting themes highlight, children deprived of liberty adopt strategies for coping with the adverse experiences that they faced, and articulate a capacity for resilience and coping amidst adversity. They shared their insights regarding the things that, for them, eased the pain of confinement: friendship, respect and empathy from adults and their peers. Children were clear about how detention should be improved and routinely wanted better educational opportunities and better access to healthcare. Apart from material concerns, children also articulated a need to have someone to turn to, who could listen to them and empathise. Having someone who kept them informed at every stage and who took their views seriously was crucial. Children also talked about the many other viable alternatives to detention that involved community-based care. At the same time, the gaps in the literature that underpinned this Study highlight the need for greater levels of comprehensive, robust research with children about their own views and experiences in all detention contexts and settings. Such research needs to be transparent, rights-compliant, accountable and ethical. There also needs to be room in the analyses for perspectives that do not fit with researchers’ pre-conceived views – remaining genuinely open to what children have to say is central to a children’s rights approach. Experiences will naturally vary from child to child, and from context to context; individual children will have different experiences from one day to the next and there is thus a vital need to undertake consultations with children that capture and depict the diversity, complexities, and sometimes the contradictions, of children’s experiences. There is also 111