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Global Detention Project Annual Report 2017

From the President and Executive Director

Late last year, two UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on Migrant Workers, issued a “joint general comment” concerning the obligations of states with respect to migrating children. It is a watershed document: both committees had increasingly encouraged countries to stop placing children in immigration detention, but this was the first time that they gave an authoritative interpretation of their respective treaties to affirm that the detention of children in the context of migration is never legitimate:

“Offences concerning irregular entry or stay cannot under any circumstances have consequences similar to those derived from the commission of a crime. Therefore, the possibility of detaining children as a measure of last resort, which may apply in other contexts such as juvenile criminal justice, is not applicable in immigration proceedings as it would conflict with the principle of the best interests of the child and the right to development.”

Read the full report at the Global Detention Project