CHAPTER 5 VIEWS AND PERSPECTIVES OF CHILDREN DEPRIVED OF LIBERTY 3.1 Provision Under the CRC heading of ‘provision’ rights, children raised concerns about the material conditions they experienced in detention and their enjoyment of their rights to education, access to health care and play and leisure. a. Standards of Detention Children complained about crowded or unhygienic living conditions, the quantity and/ or quality of food and feeling isolated, particularly in the early stages of detention. These concerns were most often reported by those in child justice institutions or immigration detention, or in relation to detention in police stations. On the latter, one child explained: ‘Physical condition is weak. Food is not available. There is no cleanliness. There is no healthcare at all’. (MF/12-18/1:AFG) The physical environment, and adapting to it, was an important feature in the data, and unsurprisingly, the first few days/weeks of detention were very difficult. A significant number of children described overcrowding and poor-quality food and living arrangements. Being placed with adults, who were detained for criminal activity such as ‘killers, drug dealers, thieves, and people who have killed for money’ (M/19/3:WEOG), further complicated their experience. Some children reported that they were not sufficiently protected while they were there. ‘We were instructed to sleep on a fixed time and the detention room was very small. It was hard for 45 detainees to stay in such small place. I didn’t know how long I had to stay in this place where children were held with adults. It was a strange place, as it was tight and suffocating with poor ventilation, I was feeling strange and afraid while I was in the police station detention room. (F/12-18/1:AFG) ‘It is a cold place and where it is difficult to fall asleep’. (M/17-20/1:LAC) ‘The prison was for mixed ages, there were five rooms for twelve people. The food was very bad (examples mentioned were milk mixed with water offered every four or five days, stiff bread, and tomatoes)’. (M/22/3:WEOG) ‘Horrible! In the first place the food, the showers … it happens often that the shower schedule skips us … The housing conditions. We get bitten by bedbugs’. (M/15-17/1:EEG) 88