told us they had never even been given paper and a pen, except for the day of our visit, when they were tasked to make drawings. Furthermore, many are illiterate and no interpreters are employed in the center.191 Legal Standards Governing the Detention of Children The Convention on the Rights of the Child limits the administration and duration of detention for children. Their detention must be lawful, for the shortest appropriate time, and may be used only as a measure of last resort.192 The Convention stipulates that the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration in all actions taken by authorities, which includes the administration of detention.193 The Committee on the Rights of the Child, the body that oversees the Convention’s implementation, has specified that “[unaccompanied] children should not, as a general rule, be detained,” and that “detention cannot be justified solely […] on their migratory or residence status, or lack thereof.”194 The Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights oblige states parties to separate adults from children in detention.195 The European Court of Human Rights held in Mubilanzila Mayeka and Kaniki Mitunga v. Belgium that the prolonged detention of an unaccompanied child jointly with adults amounted to inhuman or degrading treatment.196 Besides the obligation to separate children from adults in detention, a number of procedural safeguards apply to children who are detained. The Convention on the Rights of the Child mandates states parties to provide detained children “the right to 191 Children detained at the center also do not receive any education. 192 CRC, art. 37(b). 193 CRC, art. 3(1),(2). 194 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No.6, para 61. 195 CRC, art. 37 (c), ICCPR, art. 10(b). The CRC only allows the joint detention of children and adults if it is in the child’s best interests. Ibid. 196 “The Court notes that the second applicant was detained in a closed centre intended for illegal immigrants in the same conditions as adults; these conditions were consequently not adapted to the position of extreme vulnerability in which she found herself as a result of her position as an unaccompanied foreign minor,” Mubilanzila Mayeka and Kaniki Mitunga v. Belgium, (Application no. 13178/03), Judgment of 12 October 2006, available at www.echr.coe.int, para. 103. Left to Survive 62