A/HRC/36/21 underlying causes of large-scale movements of refugees and migrants; and (f) promote measures to combat xenophobia, discrimination and marginalization. 23. The UNICEF representative concluded his speech by asserting that those recommendations were feasible, and gave the examples of a few “champion” countries for children, including Canada, Germany, Italy and Uganda. Italy had recently approved a model law on the protection and inclusion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. UNICEF also supported Member States’ efforts in establishing alternatives to detention, such as foster families and group homes and the timely appointment of guardians. 24. Obiora Chinedu Okafor, of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, presented the study that the Advisory Committee had been mandated to conduct. Its goal was to provide a comprehensive analysis of the situation of unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents from a human rights perspective. For Mr. Okafor, it was impossible to stress enough the extent and depth of vulnerability of vast numbers of unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents. In one country, for example, three quarters of unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents had experienced violence, aggression and/or harassment at the hands of adults. 25. Some of the main human rights issues facing unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents were: trafficking for sexual and economic exploitation; brutality perpetrated both by law enforcement agents and by non-State actors; deprivations or violations of their rights to access basic education, health care, housing and other social protection measures; racial discrimination in some transit and destination countries; and gender-based discrimination and the increased risk of exploitation and/or violence faced by female unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents. 26. The forthcoming recommendations that would be issued by the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee included recommendations that Member States: (a) implement more effectively the existing domestic and international legal frameworks for the special protection of unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents; (b) bring their domestic regimes up to par with international human rights law, especially the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the jurisprudence of the Committee on the Rights of the Child; (c) reorientate their practice, from a predominantly “border control” approach that emphasizes too much the apprehension, detention and deportation of unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents, to the “best interests of the child” approach; (d) provide more special sensitivity training to border control and other relevant agents and/or staff on the situation, needs and treatment of unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents; (e) do more to treat unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents who pass through, or are otherwise on, their territories, much like they are supposed to treat their minor citizens who are in a vulnerable position; and (f) develop and keep more specific, and disaggregated, data on the situation of unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents in their territories. 27. Gholamreza Hassanpour, the former unaccompanied migrant child, assisted by Katerina Giannikopoulou of the Greek Council for Refugees, shared his experiences with the Council. He equated them to the experiences of unaccompanied minors throughout the world. Growing up in the Islamic Republic of Iran as an Afghan refugee had been extremely difficult for him, as he had not been able to access health care nor public education. At the age of 16, he had left his family and fled towards Europe. He had almost lost his life on numerous occasions during that dangerous journey. At the border between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Turkey, he had walked for ten nights and hidden inside caves in the mountains to avoid arrest, following a smuggler he had paid. He had entered Turkey in a small and overcrowded truck and had been arrested by the Turkish army, detained in a makeshift camp and subjected to rain and freezing temperatures. He had then been abandoned at the border and forced to surrender to traffickers, who had demanded that he buy his freedom back, which he had eventually managed to do. 28. From Turkey, Mr. Hassanpour had embarked on an overcrowded lifeboat in the middle of the night — to avoid coastguard patrols — and had arrived on Lesvos, in Greece. Thinking that he would be safe in Europe, he had turned himself in to the authorities and had been threatened and beaten up by Greek coast guards. He had then been brought to a detention centre, where children and adults were held together in very poor conditions. 6