E/CN.4/2004/3/Add.3 page 17 E. Detention of children 54. The constitutional reform of 1994 gave the Convention on the Rights of the Child constitutional status. However, the provisions of the Convention have not been duly incorporated into domestic legislation. The Working Group received complaints about the arrest and detention of children under the age of criminal responsibility, including children who were only 9 years old. In some of the police stations visited, the delegation found children being held with adults; most of them were street children or beggars. Some children, faced with the need to help their families financially, had turned to small-scale drug trafficking or smuggling. Others had joined gangs of children or youths with whom they committed thefts, robberies and assaults. This is a growing social problem in Argentina. It should be borne in mind that children are especially vulnerable and that they have no opportunity to react or protest. The delegation visited youth custody centres in which children were held in detention in a manner that was incompatible with Argentina’s international obligations. The delegation saw undernourished, not to mention starving, children in ragged clothes and shoes, suffering from scabies; such children were prevented for months on end from seeing daylight or breathing fresh air. This harsh treatment of children is completely counterproductive: instead of helping to rehabilitate them, it drives them to greater violence. Some of them are taught how to commit crimes by older children. Thus, the youth custody centres visited are becoming veritable schools of crime. 55. The situation is particularly serious in the province of Mendoza. The Working Group was told that the police in the province detain street children and child beggars in the city centre and take them to police station No. 3, not to institutions for juveniles. The provincial authorities told the delegation that the children were not being detained but apprehended, under article 16, paragraph 6, and article 122 of Act No. 6354. Preliminary investigations are carried out in the police stations and a judicial file is opened. The children’s income is recorded for use as background information. The judge intervenes only a posteriori. In another province, the delegation was told that the children were not being detained but simply picked up and removed from thoroughfares. 56. In the opinion of the Working Group, the main problem is that the necessary distinction between various categories of children with problems is not being made either in legislation or in practice. Children who have broken the law are detained, but so too are completely innocent children, for their own protection. The delegation heard of the case of a child arrested on suspicion of committing a crime and who was declared innocent by the judge; nevertheless, the child was sent to a detention centre for his own protection. Thus, in the police stations and youth custody centres visited, the delegation observed children in conflict with the law living with children in need of protection, children at risk and child beggars. All of the children interviewed at the Social and Educational Guidance Centre (COSE) in Mendoza stated that they had never been taken before a judge. Attention must be paid to the individual circumstances of each case and to the different educational needs of each child. The Working Group does not need to emphasize that such practices are causing physical and psychological harm to those who are the future of the country.