A/HRC/10/28 page 5 B. Management of human remains 9. With regard to the management of human remains and information on the dead, the Conference observed that the main responsibility for the proper handling of all the dead and for providing information to the families with a view to preventing anxiety and uncertainty lies with Government authorities and armed groups. Measures that could be taken include ensuring that all feasible steps are taken to identify the human remains of those who died and to record their identity; avoiding obstruction of, interference with or impediment to the identification of human remains; issuing death certificates; ensuring that all those involved respect the legal rules and professional ethics applicable to the management, exhumation and identification of human remains; ensuring that forensic specialists, whenever possible follow standard procedures when exhuming and identifying human remains; ensuring adequate training for all persons collecting information on the dead and handling human remains; and beginning a process of exhumation and identification only once a framework has been agreed upon by all those concerned. Such a framework includes the establishment of protocols for exhumation; ante-mortem data collection; autopsies; identification based on scientifically valid and reliable methods and technologies and/or customary, clinical or circumstantial evidence that is deemed appropriate and has been previously adopted by the scientific community; and appropriate means of involving communities and families in exhumation, autopsy and identification procedures. C. Support for families 10. The Conference also recommended that measures to respond to the material, financial, psychological and legal needs faced by families awaiting clarification of their family members’ fate be taken. Those measures include the provision of targeted assistance with the aim, as soon as circumstances allow, of promoting the self-sufficiency of families; addressing the legal situation of persons unaccounted for and the consequences for family members, including in terms of property administration, guardianship and parental authority; ensuring children receive special support and protection and, in particular, taking measures to reunite unaccompanied children with their families; ensuring that the needs of single heads of families are given special attention, taking into consideration the specific needs faced by women in such situations; ensuring that the families of persons unaccounted for benefit from support programmes in order to adapt to their situations and come to terms with the events; and psychological support, and, whenever necessary and feasible psychiatric treatment, to be provided to those in need. IV. MEASURES TO CLARIFY THE IDENTITY AND FATE OF PERSONS REPORTED MISSING DURING ARMED CONFLICTS 11. As highlighted by the Council in its resolution 7/28, necessary measures should be taken, in a timely manner, to determine the identity and fate of persons reported missing in connection with armed conflict. This responsibility is borne by States authorities and armed groups and entails, first of all, a commitment to implement international legal instruments, including the four Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocols thereto, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. That commitment could also be demonstrated by the signing and ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.