A/HRC/21/31 Convention of the Rights of the Child as well as the numerous international standards and norms in the field of juvenile justice, including general comment No. 10 (2007) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which provide clear guidelines for States to establish juvenile justice systems in compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Those entail the use of alternative measures, such as diversion and restorative justice, and options to respond to children in conflict with the law effectively. 7. The High Commissioner stated that one alarming concern was a growing public perception that juvenile delinquency was increasing. Such a perception, not grounded upon evidence but based on media reports of a few serious cases, influenced the political discourse and too often led to the adoption of legislation on the treatment of young offenders that weakened children’s rights. In particular, she expressed concern at the trend towards lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility and stressed the need to maintain the age of 12 as the absolute minimum, concurring with the Committee in urging countries with a higher minimum age of criminal responsibility not to lower it, and applauding those who set it at a higher age, such as 14 or 16. She said that in certain countries, children may spend months or even years in pretrial detention, which constituted a serious violation of article 37 (b) of Convention of the Rights of the Child. Concerning forms of legalized violence against children, such as capital punishment, life imprisonment without parole and corporal punishment as a sentence for a crime, the High Commissioner stated that they were clear violations of the rights of the child. 8. Antonio Caparros Linares, who had been in conflict with the law as a juvenile, explained that his childhood and adolescence had been unstable and that he had been involved with groups that initiated him into substance use, which led him to enter into conflict with the law. He indicated that the relationship with his family and those who loved him had been very affected by his behavior. He explained that he had committed his first offence when he was 16 and spent several years in a rehabilitation center. He made extensive reference to the time he had spent in Centro Reeducativo La Villa, in Villena, Alicante, Spain, run by Fundación Diagrama Intervención Psicosocial, where he received help and was made to see the consequences of his behaviour and the impact of his actions on his loved ones. At the centre he participated in workshops on construction and gardening, which helped him obtain a job afterwards. He thanked the Human Rights Council for seriously considering the situation of juveniles in difficult situations and helping them in their social reintegration. 9. Susan Bissell, Chief of the Child Protection Section and Associate Director, of the Programme Division at UNICEF in New York, explained that ―justice for children‖ referred to policies and programmes that aimed to ensure that children were better served and protected when they came into contact with justice systems—as victims/survivors, witnesses and alleged perpetrators, or for other reasons where judicial intervention is needed, for example, regarding their care, custody or protection. She explained that justice for children went beyond juvenile justice—beyond children in conflict with the law—to include all children in contact with any justice system, for whatever reason. She emphasized that that was an important shift, as it recognized that children did engage with legal systems for many reasons. She indicated that UNICEF placed justice for children within the overarching child protection systems approach, which actualized a protective environment. A child protection system was comprised of a set of laws, policies, regulations and services that were organized to prevent and respond to protection-related risks—the risks of violence, abuse and exploitation. Such a system pushed the justice-forchildren agenda to recognize that a child might be in contact with the law for different reasons, and that those different reasons might apply to the same child. A child who was on the street might also be suffering from mental health difficulties and might also be a migrant child. Approaching children holistically was an important part of a child protection 4