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[7 March 2012] - Children under 18 should be kept out of the criminal justice system, and the needs for accountability should not be mixed up with those of criminalisation, asserted Marta Santos Pais, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Violence against Children, at debate on children in detention organised by the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). Alliance with the media Once the panel of speakers opened the debate to questions from the audience, an employee from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights asked Ms Santos Pais on the possible relationship between children’s rights organisations and the media. In response, she affirmed, that we need to keep an alliance with media outlets in order to move children’s rights discussions beyond the setting of UN conferences and into the public eye. She also noted, however, that the ethics of media practices are sometimes questionable, including when journalists report on cases involving children. Accordingly, she referred to codes of ethics that some media outlets abide by, and that children’s rights advocates should aim to make these initiatives better. Victims’ rights only for some Drawing on the issue of victims’ rights versus the offending minor’s rights, a delegate from Defence for Children International, Mr Juan Fumeiro from Uruguay, denounced that while there is increasing respect for victims’ rights, there is relatively no respect for the rights of detained children who are victims of torture, often as the public officials guilty of torture are not tried for their crime. Leaving prison worse off Mr Fumeiro later warned that child detainees often leave prison worse off than when they went in, blaming this outcome on the fact that in prison there is no aim to rehabilite detainees, but is solely based on punishment.Â