A/HRC/36/21 was legitimate for States to use the Convention to guide their response to migratory movements. 16. Cristiana Carletti, of Roma Tre University, emphasized that all children, including unaccompanied minors, were entitled to have their human rights respected, and in particular to have their best interests taken as a primary consideration in host, transit and destination countries. Taken in conjunction with the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, of 1951, that principle should be seen as reinforcing and expanding the Convention provisions for the protection of unaccompanied minors in instances where domestic protection alternatives were being assessed or when removal of a child to a “safe third country” or to the child’s country of origin was being considered. 17. According to Ms. Carletti, the following measures can be put in place in order to address unaccompanied minors’ basic needs: establishing appropriate identification and age assessment procedures in reception centres; recruiting personnel with specific skills to work alongside unaccompanied minors, including cultural mediators; adopting methodologies to trace family members so as to facilitate the implementation of family reunification programmes; assisting voluntary repatriation, using a case-by-case approach; and creating a specific data collection system, to include all essential information about each case. Moreover, Member States should persevere in their efforts to develop in 2018 a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration. 18. Ms. Carletti cited as an example of good legislative practice the approval by the Italian Parliament of Act No. 47 of 7 April 2017, which provided new, comprehensive legislation on accompanied and unaccompanied minors, in compliance with Human Rights Council resolution 33/7. In particular, the Act repeated the principles formulated by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, such as its definition of “unaccompanied minors”, and the principle of non-refoulement of unaccompanied minors at borders; reduced the maximum length of time that the identification process could take for unaccompanied minors; provided them with psychosocial support and with access to education and health care; created a list of voluntary guardians, managed by local communities; and ensured the direct participation of unaccompanied minors in decision-making processes concerning them. 19. Lucio Melandri, of UNICEF, noted that the number of children moving across international borders had been skyrocketing in the past decade. For example, in Europe alone, the number of children seeking asylum had multiplied almost tenfold between 2008 and 2016. Because the factors driving children to seek refuge, such as hunger, conflict, violence, poverty and climate shocks showed no sign of abating, migration flows were expected to remain constant or to grow. 20. States’ migration management, depending on their inclination, could either contribute to protecting unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents or could increase the risks they were exposed to. For instance, sudden border closure measures and aggressive pushbacks could leave children in countries where they were not welcomed, or had few opportunities. Consequently, children could turn to smugglers, who ranged from people who were helping others in need, for a fee, to organized criminal networks that exploited and abused children. 21. Barriers to legal migration did not stop children from migrating but only pushed them underground, thereby making them more vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation. The lack of timely information, of guardians and of access to services, as well as weak child protection systems and inadequate law enforcement measures, worked in favour of traffickers and against the children. Moreover, even when unaccompanied migrant children were highly in need, their mistrust of institutions, and their fear of detention and deportation, prevented them from coming forward to seek protection and support. 22. Hence, UNICEF recommended that Member States: (a) protect child refugees and migrants, particularly unaccompanied children, from exploitation and violence; (b) end the detention of children seeking refugee status or migrating, by introducing a range of practical alternatives; (c) keep families together, as the best way to protect children and give children legal status; (d) keep all refugee and migrant children in education and give them access to good-quality health care and other services; (e) press for action on the 5