36 9. Groups of persons deprived of their liberty at various places of detention 9.1. Children deprived of their liberty Regardless of the reasons for which they may have been deprived of their liberty, juveniles are inherently more vulnerable than adults. Due to this vulnerability, particular vigilance is required on the part of the staff members of the places of detention to ensure that the children’s physical and mental well-being is adequately protected.105 There is no children’s ombudsman in Hungary; however, in performing the tasks of the NPM I have to pay special attention to the protection of the rights of the child. A child is “a person who has not yet reached 18 years of age, except if such a person becomes an adult earlier pursuant to the laws applicable to him or her”.106 Although, in the system of Hungarian penal law, children having reached fourteen (in exceptional cases twelve) years of age are actionable and, in the field of health law, they may make independent decisions after having reached the age of sixteen years, special treatment, extra attention and specific conditions of detention have to be provided to persons deprived of their liberty who have not reached yet the age of eighteen or, in the case of the enforcement of the sentence, twenty-one years of age.107 Visits by the NPM to places of detention where children deprived of their liberty are kept focus, on the one hand, on gathering information indicative of abuse and/or ill-treatment and, on the other hand, on finding out whether the detention environment is suitable for ensuring and protecting their physical and mental well-being. During these visits the NPM paid special attention to the extent the given place of detention meets the special requirement deriving from the joint placement of persons deprived of their liberty belonging to various gender and age groups. 9.1.1. Children held at dedicated places of detention 9.1.1.1. Children’s Home States Parties “shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child. Such determination may be necessary in a particular case such as one involving abuse or neglect of the child by the parents, or one where the parents are living separately and a decision must be made as to the child’s place of residence.”108 At the time of the NPM’s visit, there were 42 children, between the ages of one month and 16 years, taken care of in the Reménysugár (“Ray of Hope”) Children’s Home of Debrecen (hereinafter the “Children’s Home”) that has a total capacity of 40. Several children were suspected to have been placed in the institution predominantly due to their parents’ dire financial situation. Part of the children had special needs only because they had not reached the age of three yet. In the case of one third of them, placement with foster parents would not be made See Clause 20 of CPT/Inf (99) 12 See Article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereinafter the "UN Convention on the Rights of the Child"), signed in New York on November 20, 1989, promulgated by Act LXIV of 1991 107 In accordance with Section 82, Paragraph 1 of the Penal Execution Code, "convicts in juvenile penitentiary who are over eighteen but have not reached yet twenty-one years of age shall also be treated as juveniles". 108 See Article 9, Paragraph 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 105 106