125 people, including children, crowded into a prison cell in Nigeria, 2007 I recount these personal experiences in such detail because I believe them to illustrate the importance of continuously striving to improve the situation of children worldwide. Though these situations may to some extent have improved since presenting my findings to the General Assembly in 2010, certain issues still remain – as is illustrated by the following chapters. Moreover, the memory of what I witnessed is the decisive reason why I finally decided to accept the offer of Marta Santos Pais to lead the Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty. The process of the Study has once more highlighted to me the views and experiences of detained children. Even now, several years after the experiences recounted above, I am still struck by how similar the situations of children are still today. I consider this Study as a follow up to the Global Study on Violence against Children, published in 2006 under the guidance of Paulo Sergio Pinheiro.2 As Pinherio’s Study illustrates, violence against children occurs in various settings, including in the family, in schools, in workplaces and in the community. It is worst, however, in care and justice institutions where 2 Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, Independent Expert for the United Nations Secretary General’s Study on Violence against Children, World Report on Violence against Children, Geneva 2006. 9