OVC Support Toolkit  >  Living environments  >  Children living outside of family care 

Prisons and detention centres

This section looks at the situation facing orphans and other vulnerable children living in prisons and detention centres. Another section looks in general at issues facing children and young people living outside of family care. Other sections look in detail at children and young people living on commercial farms, on the street and in situations of conflict.

Although a great deal has been written about prisons and HIV/AIDS, relatively little appears to have been written specifically about children and young people in this setting. Orphans and other vulnerable children may be more likely to engage in illegal activities. In some cases, children and young people carry out these activities to survive or generate a livelihood. This means that orphans and other vulnerable children may be more likely to end up in prisons or detention centres.

Children and young people in prison are particularly vulnerable. Children and young people may live in a prison environment for a number of reasons. Young children may be there because their mother is in prison. Older children and young people may be there because of offences they have committed themselves. Children and young people in prison are vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse, particularly where facilities to keep them separate from adult prisoners are inadequate.

There are a number of ways of responding to the situation of orphans and other vulnerable children in prisons and detention centres. These include:

• Finding ways to avoid the imprisonment of children and young people, such as the greater use of non-custodial sentences
• Ensuring that older children and young people who are imprisoned are held in facilities that are separate from adult prisoners
• Ensuring that there are suitable facilities for women to care for young children who are held in prison with them
• Providing suitable training for prison staff on the particular needs of children and young people held in prisons and detention centres

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