A/HRC/21/25 need to ensure birth registration, age and gender assessment procedures to secure children’s rights and safeguards to prevent and protect children from violence within the juvenile justice system. 68. Similarly, States must raise the age of criminal responsibility to a minimum of at least 12 years, continue to increase it, and ensure non-custodial options for children below that age. 2. Protecting children from all forms of violence within the juvenile justice system and integrating this dimension into the national agenda 69. States are urged to revise their laws, policies and procedures to ensure compliance with international standards and ensure that the process of juvenile justice reform is framed by a child- and gender-sensitive approach, promoting a juvenile justice system that is fair, effective, efficient, and established as a core dimension of the national child protection system. 70. In this light, States are urged, through their national legal frameworks, to ensure that the Constitution, or its equivalent, contains key child rights principles and safeguards including the consideration of children’s deprivation of liberty only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time, the separation of children from adults, and of girls from boys; the effective protection of children from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or any other form of violence, including as a form of punishment, treatment or sentencing. 71. Legislation should contain specific measures to prohibit all forms of violence and effectively protect children. Justice, governance, security and human rights institutions should publicly expose and effectively respond to violence against children in the juvenile justice system in a manner that enhances public accountability. Civil society has a key role to play in this regard and conditions should be created for them to contribute to strengthening the rule of law and holding public officials accountable for acts of violence against children. 3. Ensuring the use of diversion and alternative non-custodial measures as priorities within the juvenile justice system 72. States are urged to develop and use effective alternative mechanisms to formal criminal proceedings that are child- and gender-sensitive, such as restorative justice, mediation, and community-based programmes, including treatment programmes for children with substance abuse problems. 73. States should guarantee that all officials in the juvenile justice system, including law enforcement officials, prosecutors and judges, as well as community-based justice providers, including religious and traditional leaders, are trained on children’s rights and supported in the implementation of these rights and standards related to juvenile justice. 74. It is urgent to ensure effective coordination between child justice sectors, different services in charge of law enforcement and the social welfare and education sectors in order to promote the use of diversion and alternative non-custodial measures. Pretrial diversion and alternative, community-based sentences in conformity with children’s rights should be introduced where they do not exist, and where they do, their scope and application expanded. 15