was 30. A 50-year-old Georgian woman detainee said, “You cannot imagine how dirty and difficult it is for me here….It's not appropriate to be with these men. I don't sleep at night. I just sit on a mattress.” In Fylakio, by contrast, the authorities separated men from single women but detained unaccompanied children together with unrelated adults in large, overcrowded cells. Sewage was running on the floors, and the smell was hard to bear. Greek guards wore surgical masks when they entered the passageway between the large barred cells. Human Rights Watch’s observations and the testimonies we gathered on detention conditions in Evros in December 2010 were consistent with our previous reports on conditions in Greek migrant detention centers dating from 2008 and those of other organizations which have been monitoring and documenting the conditions of detention for migrants in Greece. In a January 2011 review of these reports the ECtHR concluded: All the centers visited by bodies and organizations that produced the reports … describe a similar situation to varying degrees of gravity: overcrowding, dirt, lack of ventilation, little or no possibility of taking a walk, no place to relax, insufficient mattresses, no free access to toilets, inadequate sanitary facilities, no privacy, limited access to care. Many of the people interviewed also complained of insults, particularly racist insults, proffered by staff and the use of physical violence by guards. During the RABIT mission Frontex also provided personnel who conducted nationalitydetermination screenings that were, in effect, rubber-stamped by the Greek authorities. These screenings determine detainees’ country of origin in order to facilitate their deportation. Although these screenings were not intended to identify international protection needs, in reality they were usually the most substantive interviews detainees had before being deported. Given the formidable barriers to lodging asylum claims in Greece at that time (particularly in the Evros region), the exclusive enforcement emphasis of these interviews appears to have contributed to the protection gap in the Evros region, including the risk that genuine refugees might not be identified and would be subjected to refoulement. This report argues that Frontex activities in Greece do not meet the standards set out in the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, by which Frontex is bound. Since the ban on participation in activities which would expose individuals to inhuman and degrading treatment is absolute, the onus is on the EU to work with Greece to rectify the situation of 3 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | SEPTEMBER 2011