A/HRC/34/45 envisaged. It is crucial to ensure safe, dignified and child-sensitive age-assessment procedures, and in any case of doubt to provide the special protection every child is entitled to. The same principles should apply when the child’s legal status is being established or when a request for family reunification is considered. The appointment of a legal guardian is essential to provide support and to defend the child’s best interests at every point. 57. Thirdly — and as reiterated in the New York Declaration — the responsibility for the care of children on the move needs to be promptly entrusted to national child protection authorities, rather than left to border or security officials. To be effective, child protection systems dealing with children on the move need to be cohesive and well resourced, with quality services and well-trained staff having the skills to meaningfully interview and communicate with children, understand risks and promote resilience. 58. Inter-agency collaboration among all relevant government departments is essential in this regard, but it is equally important to ensure effective cross-border and regional cooperation, promoting synergies to mobilize support and resources to address the many challenges affecting children on the move and to promote durable solutions and a continuity of care, including to ensure their empowerment, social inclusion and resumption of an independent life and to prevent the risks of revictimization, violence, or any other violation of their rights. 59. Moreover, all incidents of violence against children on the move must be exposed. Children need to feel respected, cherished and supported in their development and wellbeing. They have the right to feel safe and protected from fear, abuse and exploitation. Impunity needs to end. And sound data and evidence need to be consolidated to inform decisions on violence prevention, early warning and response; to help enhance the skills of professionals and the capacity of institutions; and to sustain and monitor progress and evaluate the impact of interventions. Careful, ethical and participatory evaluation and research involving the children concerned are a crucial dimension of this process. 60. Children’s rights are universal, inalienable and interrelated. The right to freedom from violence everywhere and at all times; the right to respect for family unity and to special protection when separated from their families; the right to have any request for family reunification considered in a positive, humane and expeditious manner; and the rights to a legal identity, to liberty and security and to effective alternatives to deprivation of liberty are inherent in the human dignity of every child. Children on the move are entitled to nothing less. 61. But for human rights to be meaningfully enjoyed, it is indispensable to ensure that children on the move have access to child-friendly information and counselling; to justice; and to genuine participation in safe, child- and gender-sensitive procedures and mechanisms, including to seek redress for incidents of violence or to challenge the legality of their deprivation of liberty. 62. In brief, we urgently need to stand up for children on the move and secure their protection because, first and foremost, they are children. IV. Strengthening regional processes to enhance the protection of children from violence 63. Cooperation with regional organizations and institutions has been a cornerstone of the Special Representative’s strategy to accelerate progress in the protection of children from violence. Indeed, regional organizations and institutions are strategic allies in violence-prevention and -elimination initiatives and their institutionalized cooperation with the Special Representative has helped place violence against children at the heart of the 14