A/HRC/11/L.11 page 37 7. States should develop and implement comprehensive child welfare and protection policies within the framework of their overall social and human development policy, with attention to the improvement of existing alternative care provision, reflecting the principles contained in the present Guidelines. 8. As part of efforts to prevent separation of children from their parents, States should seek to ensure appropriate and culturally sensitive measures: (a) To support family care-giving environments whose capacities are limited by factors such as disabilities; drug and alcohol misuse; discrimination against families with indigenous or minority backgrounds; and those living in armed conflict regions or under foreign occupation; (b) To provide appropriate care and protection for vulnerable children, such as child victims of abuse and exploitation; abandoned children; children living on the street; children born out of wedlock; unaccompanied and separated children; internally displaced and refugee children; children of migrant workers; children of asylum-seekers; or children living with or affected by HIV/AIDS and other serious illnesses. 9. Special efforts should be made to tackle discrimination on the basis of any status of the child or parents, including poverty, ethnicity, religion, sex, mental and physical disability, HIV/AIDS status or other serious illnesses, whether physical or mental, birth out of wedlock, and socio-economic stigma, and all other statuses and circumstances that can give rise to relinquishment, abandonment and/or removal of a child. B. Alternative care 10. All decisions concerning alternative care should take full account of the desirability, in principle, of maintaining the child as close as possible to his/her habitual place of residence, in order to facilitate contact and potential reintegration with his/her family and to minimize disruption of his/her educational, cultural and social life. 11. Decisions regarding children in alternative care, including those in informal care, should have due regard for the importance of ensuring children a stable home and of meeting their basic need for safe and continuous attachment to their caregivers, with permanency generally being a key goal.