The Vatican has called on the international community to protect the rights of unaccompanied migrant children and condemned their detention as a 'grave error'.

The Holy See's Permanent Observer to the UN in Geneva, Archbishop Ivan Jurkovič, made the remarks to the Human Rights Council panel discussion on the rights of unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents, Vatican Radio reported. 

'The grave error of the detention model is that it considers the children as sole, isolated subjects responsible for the situations in which they find themselves and over which they have little, if any, control. This model wrongly absolves the international community at large from responsibilities that it regularly fails to fulfill,' the Archbishop said.

He also appealed for the international community 'to protect the dignity and fundamental rights of every person and to implement, without reserve, humanitarian law, principles and policies in response to people on the move, especially unaccompanied children: they must be considered children first and foremost, and their best interest must be a primary consideration in all actions concerning them.'

Archbishop Jurkovič went on to denounce the concept of detaining migrant children. 'Children should not be criminalized or subject to punitive measures because of their own migration status or that of their parents,' he said. 'The practice of detaining migrant children should not be an option, and the best interests of the child should always prevail.'

Instead, he said: 'The possibility of authentic integral human development should be guaranteed for all children.'