135. Whenever children are held in dedicated sections in the CCACs, they must be offered the appropriate living conditions and support. Therefore, the CPT recommends that the Greek authorities take steps to ensure that all children: - are provided with clothing and shoes appropriate for the weather as well as sufficient quantities of hygiene products, including sanitary pads for girls; are provided with sufficient food of a varied nature containing the necessary vitamins and nutrients for growing adolescents; offered activities of a diverse nature in addition to school classes in the mornings; offered greater psychological and counselling support, as required, and legal advice and information in a language they can understand on the asylum process and their specific situation. Further, the CPT recommends that the staffing levels in the UASC sections be strengthened accordingly. 136. More generally, while recognising the challenges of coping with the arrival of large numbers of foreign nationals, the CPT considers that, in line with the principle of the “best interests of the child”, as set out in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the case law of the European Court on Human Rights,54 unaccompanied and separated children, as well as families with children, should not be detained. Instead, they should rather be transferred to appropriate open accommodation that is child-friendly and where their needs are being met. Greece has developed a panoply of support measures under the Special Secretariat for Protection of Unaccompanied Minors within the Ministry of Migration and Asylum outside of the detention framework, which are well renowned. By contrast, the CCACs are not appropriate places for holding children, due to their carceral design and insufficient staffing levels and support offered. The CPT recommends that the Greek authorities end the detention of unaccompanied and separated children in the CCACs. 5. Persons with special needs and vulnerabilities 137. The delegation found that there were large numbers of persons with special needs and vulnerabilities being held in both the Kos and Samos CCACs at the time of the visit, whose needs had not been clearly identified. It is difficult to know the extent of the needs without a systematic individual risk and needs assessment. The delegation met men, women and children with clearly identifiable vulnerabilities who were being exposed to potentially serious harm in all three CCACs it visited. For example, the delegation met: - Young women who were being held with unrelated single men in the same container; - Families and single mothers with small children who were being locked in with many single men (see footnote 48), with no toilet or private space; needless to say, they were terrified; - Many women in an advanced state of pregnancy who had not been properly identified and followed: one pregnant woman had to sleep outside for three nights and later miscarried; another woman from West Africa who was eight months pregnant felt completely abandoned and spent her days lying on the floor in her dilapidated cabin which she shared with two young women and eight single men, all of whom spoke only Arabic; - Women who were victims of trafficking in human beings, domestic or gender-based violence or forced labour, and who were not being identified and supported;55 54. See, inter alia European Court of Human Rights, H.A. and Others v. Greece, no. 19951/16, 28 February 2019; and Rahimi v. Greece, no. 8687/08, 5 April 2011. 55. See also the Group of Experts on action against trafficking (GRETA) report on Greece of 23 March 2023 – GRETA(2023)3, paragraphs 139 to 159, on the need to improve the timely identification of survivors of trafficking. See also the baseline evaluation report by the Group of experts on Action against Violence against 41