Keeping children and adults together in detention puts children at an increased risk of abuse and ill-treatment. A global study on violence against children found that children detained in the same cells with adults are at risk of violence, including sexual violence.186 Fifteen-year-old Nurullah F. told us he was made to sleep on the floor in the police lock-up on Kos Island by fellow adult detainees: I stayed there for 10 days. We were three persons in one cell… there was one bed only. Two slept in that bed and I slept on the floor. I had one blanket. I used half of it as a blanket and half as a bed…. I couldn’t sleep in that place. The floor was concrete and it was humid. When I put my blanket on the floor I was cold at night. The other two were older than me so I always had to sleep on the floor.187 Sixteen-year-old Sobir S. told us that he was beaten in Avlona prison by a fellow inmate: “An Albanian detainee inside the cell hit me into my eye. I was injured and still have a headache. Some of these others were criminals, robbers and murderers…. I was the youngest.”188 The separation of children from adults is a key safeguard to protect children from violence and ill-treatment in detention. A further crucial measure of protection in any detention setting is a confidential complaints mechanism. We asked a senior police official in the newly renovated Amygdaleza detention facility for unaccompanied children how boys could file a confidential complaint, in case of acts of violence by staff or peers.189 He told us: “if a child has a problem he can write a message to the responsible authority here. Every morning the officer goes to the rooms and asks if anybody has a complaint.”190 Boys 186 Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, World Report on Violence against Children, Geneva: October 2006, www.violencestudy.org/a553 (accessed August 30, 2008) p. 199. 187 Human Rights Watch interview with Nurullah F., Athens, May 27, 2008. 188 Human Rights Watch interview with Sobir S., Volos, June 11, 2008. 189 Human Rights Watch did not record any allegations of ill-treatment by staff at the center. Human Rights Watch visit to Amygdaleza detention center, June 3, 2008. 190 Human Rights Watch interview with Yiorgos Paliouras, police director, Aliens’ Division of Attica, Amygdaleza detention center, Athens, June 3, 2008. 61 Human Rights Watch December 2008