A/71/206 perpetrators accountable leads to the perpetuation of violence and a deep sense of impunity. 16 102. In such situations, children face serious difficulties in obtaining prompt and unhindered access to effective remedies to redress human rights violations that may have occurred, including with a view to securing their protection, enabling the investigation of wrongdoing and the punishment of those found responsible, and benefiting from rehabilitation and reparation actions. This is aggravated by children’s fear of harassment, reprisal and stigmatization for speaking out about incidents of violence. 17 103. To address these concerns, urgent measures are needed. First, it is crucial to empower children with easily understandable, age-sensitive and culturally appropriate information about their rights and relevant procedures to enable them to exercise their right to be heard and to benefit from effective remedies and services for their protection, recovery and reintegration. Moreover, it is indispensable to establish safe, child- and gender-sensitive counselling, complaints and reporting mechanisms to which children can easily gain access to address any incidents of violence or other grievances. 104. Second, strong accountability mechanisms need to be put in place to safeguard children’s rights in places of detention, through rigorous oversight, inspection and independent monitoring by competent authorities and institutions to prevent and respond to incidents of violence and to fight impunity. B. Significant developments in Latin America 105. Following the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, comprehensive national legal reforms have been promoted in the field of juvenile justice. Despite these reforms, regional organizations and nationa l and international human rights institutions have documented serious violations of children’s rights. These include police violence, a widespread and disproportionate use of deprivation of liberty, both as a cautionary measure and as a sanction, overcrowd ing and unpunished cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. Furthermore, there are insufficient resources and institutional capacities for the use of restorative justice and of non-custodial programmes to promote children’s social reintegration, and mechanisms for the monitoring and oversight of the rights of children deprived of liberty need reinforcement to overcome impunity for incidents of violence against children. 106. Several countries are steadily increasing efforts to address these serious challenges and to establish effective monitoring systems for places of detention to prevent abuses, investigate incidents and assess conditions of detention and children’s views and experiences. 107. Complementing existing penitentiary systems of inspection and monitoring, significant autonomous institutions have been set up, within or outside the __________________ 16 17 20/23 Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, World Report on Violence against Children (Geneva, 2006), p. 182. Najat Maalla M’jid and Marta Santos Pais, “Safe and child-sensitive counselling, complaint and reporting mechanisms to address violence against children”, joint report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children and the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (New York, 2012), p. 5. 16-12906