CHAPTER 1 DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY IS DEPRIVATION OF CHILDHOOD children are deprived of liberty. In my opinion, places of detention constitute settings of structural violence. At the same time, the conditions in places of detention are very little known to the outside world. Prison walls serve two distinct functions: to lock people away from society, and to keep society out. Only very few members of our societies have been inside prisons, police jails, migration detention centres, psychiatric hospitals, orphanages, children’s homes, drug rehabilitation centres, institutions for children with disabilities or any other places of detention, and most people have no desire to know what the reality of life behind bars looks like. There is very little interest, let alone empathy, for detainees in general, and for children detainees in particular. Many global statistics cover all aspects of life, but nobody knows how many children are in fact deprived of liberty worldwide or what the conditions of their detention look like. Taking all of the above into consideration, it was a very timely decision of the United Nations General Assembly in December 2014 to invite the Secretary-General to commission an in-depth global study on children deprived of liberty.3 One of the main aims of the Study is to assess, on the basis of scientific data, the magnitude of the global number of children deprived of liberty in six different situations, including in institutions, for migration related reasons and in the context of the administration of criminal justice. Another goal is to comprehend the root causes and pathways leading to deprivation of liberty of so many children as well as to gather best practices of States that have applied non-custodial solutions instead of detention. The Study also addresses the conditions of detention, taking into account the personal views and experiences of children. Finally, the Study assesses possible justifications for and limits of deprivation of liberty of children in light of all relevant provisions of international law, above all the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Most importantly, all decisions that deprive children of liberty in whatever setting must meet the high standards of the best interests of the child in Article 3 CRC and the requirement of Article 37(b) CRC, according to which children may only be detained as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time. The Global Study shows that the vast majority of children detained around the world today have been deprived of liberty in violation of these principles. In almost all cases, there would have been non-custodial solutions available, which should have been applied in order to meet the high legal standard of detention as a measure of last resort. The main message of the Global Study is to urge States to better respect and protect the rights of children by drastically reducing the number of children deprived of liberty. This 3 UN General Assembly, Resolution on the Rights of the Child, A/69/157, 18 December 2014, para. 52(d). 10