recruitment of women and children for the purposes of prostitution or sexual exploitation is a form of gender-related violence, which may constitute persecution.48 In addition, UNCAT obliges the returning states to carry out a risk assessment regarding risk to returned person of being tortured in the receiving state. Moreover, states must also assess the individual circumstances of a person and not only the “consistent patterns of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights” within the receiving country.49 States cannot return a person if there is a risk of harm – for example, re-trafficking and retaliation that may amount to torture – or, in accordance with ECHR standards, if there is a risk of other forms of ill-treatment. Where states know of conditions in the receiving country that would expose the returnee to the risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, proceeding with the return would amount to a breach of the ECHR, including if the receiving country is an EU Member State. Recent decisions of the ECtHR have also confirmed the obligations of states in the return of persons to their country of origin, or to transit countries under the Dublin Regulation.50 The CRC and UNICEF provide more concrete guidance concerning the conduct of risk assessment in cases of child victims of trafficking. The CRC highlights that risk assessments should be conducted in an age- and gender-sensitive manner, in particular taking into account the serious consequences for children of the insufficient provision of food or health services.51 According to UNICEF Trafficking Guidelines, the competent authority in the country where the child is identified shall, in consultation with the child, determine the best solution for the child among the following: integration into the destination country, voluntary repatriation and re-integration in the country or place of origin, or resettlement and integration in a third country.52 A risk assessment 48  UNHCR Trafficking Guidelines, para. 19. UNHCR also prescribes that assessing the “well-founded fear of being persecuted” needs to be fact-based, focusing on both the individual and the contextual circumstances of the case. The availability and effectiveness of state protection needs to be carefully assessed based on reliable and up-to-date country of origin information (see UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Guidelines on International Protection No. 9: Claims to Refugee Status based on Sexual Orientation and/or Gender Identity within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, 23 October 2012, HCR/GIP/12/09 (hereafter: UNHCR Guidelines on International Protection No. 9), paras. 28, 37). 49 OSCE Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, Trafficking in Human Beings Amounting to Torture and other Forms of Ill-treatment (Vienna: OSCE, 2013), p. 33. 50 See M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece, Application no. 30696/09, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, 21 January 2011; and Mohammed v. Austria, Application no. 2283/12, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, 6 June 2013. 51  UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), CRC General Comment No. 6: Treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin, 1 September 2005 CRC/GC/2005/6 (hereafter: CRC General Comment No. 6), para. 27. 52  UNICEF warns that it is critical to take special measures in situations where children have been involved in activities with a high risk of stigma, such as prostitution and sexual exploitation, as a result of trafficking. Preparations for the reunification of these children must take into account the need to shield them against discrimination, targeted attacks, further recruitment or re-trafficking (see UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Guidelines on the Protection of Child Victims of Trafficking, September 2006 (hereafter: UNICEF Trafficking Guidelines), para. 8.2). 40 Part 2: Explanatory Report to the Principles