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“The world was dark for me. I felt broken. I felt I was nobody. In a detention centre you are so broken that you think you are nobody.”

“Hear our voices” was a creative presentation delivered by six youngsters with immigration detention experience in front of States, UN agencies and NGOs at the Day of General Discussion on September 28 2012. The script of the presentation is made up of the actual words of the participating youth with detention experience, which ranges from six weeks to six years. The theatre presentation is the result of a one week residential workshop in which the formerly detained children used creative art techniques to tell their stories.

During the Day, the Committee underlined that article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which also applies in migration situations and is legally binding for its 193 States parties, explicitly states that “no child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily” and the “arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.