A/64/213 Sustainable return and reintegration 81. The Special Rapporteur highlights the importance of ensuring the reintegration of migrants who return to their countries, either voluntarily or involuntarily, and encourages the design and implementation of programmes for the sustainable return and reintegration of children, including alternatives to return on the basis of the best interests of the child. 82. The Special Rapporteur suggests that reintegration programmes take into account the social and human aspect of migration, including the psychological effects of uprooting, the difficulties of reinsertion in the labour market and problems linked to the existence of debt in the country of origin, and recommends the development of comprehensive reintegration programmes involving migrants, their families, Governments and civil society at large. 83. The Special Rapporteur encourages Governments to increase efforts to implement registration systems for their migrating citizens and to monitor their return. That in turn would help in monitoring the situation of children left behind and make it possible to assess the problems faced by returnees and to develop appropriate strategies to facilitate their social and economic integration. Deportation of children 84. The Special Rapporteur is concerned about the protection of the human rights of children who are subject to deportation and wishes to insist on the importance of respecting the best interests of the child in such procedures. 85. The Special Rapporteur invites States to give consideration to the principle of non-deportation of unaccompanied children, whereby children should be repatriated only if it is in their best interests, namely, for the purpose of family reunification and after due process of law. The Special Rapporteur notes that the enforcement of this principle would require public policies and a legal framework in both the country of origin and that of destination. In this regard, the Special Rapporteur regrets that the recently adopted European Union return directive (2008/115/EC) authorizes the deportation of children migrants in the same sense as adults (art. 10), despite some specific protection measures. No distinction is made regarding the nature of the deportation, which in both cases is a “punitive approach” instead of a “protection approach”, as stressed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child and other human rights institutions and mechanisms at the global and regional levels. 86. The Special Rapporteur also wishes to emphasize that mechanisms are also needed to ensure children’s rights and perspectives within the deportation procedures of their parents (based on their migration status), especially their right to be heard. While States tend to consider the rights of the adults involved in such procedures (including the right to the family unit), there is no specific mechanism that considers the rights of their children. Migration-related detention of children 87. Migration-related detention of children should not be justified on the basis of maintaining the family unit (for example, detention of children with their parents when all are irregular migrants). As the United Nations Children’s Fund and other experts have stressed, detaining children will never be in their best interests. Hence, the ideal utilization of a rights-based approach would imply adopting alternative 09-43777 19