A/HRC/25/33 child's best interests required the development of a rights-based approach, engaging all actors, to secure the holistic physical, psychological, moral and spiritual integrity of the child and promote his or her human dignity. He also noted that the best interests of the child — once assessed and determined — might conflict with other interests or rights (e.g. of other children, the public, parents, etc.). Potential conflicts had to be resolved on a case-bycase basis, carefully balancing the interests of all parties and finding a suitable compromise. If harmonization was not possible, authorities and decision-makers would have to analyse and weigh the rights of all those concerned, bearing in mind that the right of the child to have his or her best interests taken as a primary consideration meant that the child's interests had high priority and not just one of several considerations. 11. Sandra Jones of Rowan University discussed the grief and trauma of children of death row inmates in the United States of America. Concurring with previous speakers, she noted that from the time of their parent’s arrest to the execution, these children were cast into an agonizing form of grief that was unlike any other. She noted that they felt alone and stigmatized due to all the publicity generated within the highly sensationalized media by their fathers’ (or mother’s) case. As consequence, those children tended to isolate themselves from their peers and even from the rest of the family. She also noted that those children found it painful and difficult to have a meaningful relationship with their father (or mother), given the numerous obstacles imposed by the prison system, such as the glass that separated them during their visits in prisons’ maximum security areas. With regard to difficulties in school, she highlighted that generally no support system was put in place for those children and school often became a place where they fought to defend their parent’s reputation and, by extension, their own. As a result of those experiences that came with having a parent on death row, the children typically suffered a variety of medical and psychological conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. In addition, they might dissociate in an attempt to keep from feeling their pain, and could demonstrate behavioural problems and were often highly aggressive, as they harboured a great deal of anger. Children often displayed symptoms of trauma, including insomnia and rumination — particularly those children who were witness to the murder committed by their parent. 12. Nisreen Zerikat stated that national human rights institutions could play a pivotal role for the protection of the human rights of children of parents sentenced to death by facilitating their visits to prisons, monitoring human rights violations suffered by those children, receiving complaints from the children themselves or from their relatives and following up the cases of reported human rights violations with the concerned authorities. In that regard, she noted that the National Centre for Human Rights in Jordan offered support to prisoners and extended its services to their families and children. She also highlighted: the importance of the human rights education of law enforcement bodies, which should include training on the rights of the child; the importance of the development of child-sensitive guidelines on prison visits by children of parents on death row and the role of the media in protecting the human rights of those children. 13. By highlighting experiences of his own organization, Francis Ssubi said that it was very traumatizing for children to live in fear of their parent’s execution. Concurring with other panellists, he also noted that children with a parent on death row faced a higher risk of mental-health difficulties, such as sadness, psychological confusion, fear, sleeping problems, anxiety, eating disorders, low self-esteem and a sense of powerlessness, In addition, they faced other risks, such as early marriage, school dropout, poor grades, stunted growth, unwanted pregnancies or extreme violence, such as rape. He recommended that research be carried out worldwide to establish the exact number of children affected. Such research could assist States and other stakeholders to effectively help them. He also recommended that States establish child-friendly criminal justice systems and develop sentencing guidelines catering for the best interests of the children of offenders, as required in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. He further recommended that States that still 6