The Guidelines for Alternative Care of Children—Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2010, the Guidelines aim to enhance the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and of relevant provisions of other international instruments concerning the protection and well-being of children who are deprived of parental care or who are at risk of being so. The Guidelines seeks to ensure that children do not find themselves in out-of-home care unnecessarily. The Guidelines further seek that the type and quality of out-of-home care provided is appropriate to the rights and specific needs of the child concerned. Available at www.unicef.org/protection/alternative_care_Guidelines-English.pdf. Encouraging family unification 117. Even when separation is determined to be in the best interests of the child, it should not necessarily be permanent or indefinite. When separation is necessary, it should be for the shortest possible time. Services should be provided to support families to address the causes of separation, and there should be a process for regular review of the situation for eventual family unification when it is deemed to be in the best interests of the child. Given that international law provides special protection to the family, States should ensure such periodic review of separation with the aim of reuniting the child with his or her family whenever it is in the child’s best interests.230 In situations in which a child is in a country different from his or her parent or parents, article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that applications by a child or his or her parents to enter or leave a State Party for the purpose of family reunification should be dealt with by States parties in a positive, humane and expeditious manner.231 If it has been determined that it is in a child’s best interests to be repatriated without his or her parents or other family members, he or she should be readmitted to his or her country of origin as soon as possible to facilitate family reunification. 3.1.3 Human Rights Considerations When Separation Occurs 118. Even when separation is decided to be in the best interests of the child, international human rights standards provide several considerations to be made by the States to ensure that the child’s rights are respected and protected. When a child has to be separated from the parent or the primary caregiver, the State has a responsibility to provide alternative care. Family-based care should be prioritized rather than an institutional environment. Institutions should be used only as a last resort and for the shortest time possible.232 States should ensure that guardianship of a separated child is never granted to an individual or organization that is involved in a conflict.233 230 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), art. 16(3); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), art. 23; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), art. 10(1); American Convention on Human Rights (1969), art. 17(1); Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the area of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1988), art. 15(1); African Charter on Human Rights and Peoples’ Rights (1981), art. 18. 231 Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), art. 10(1). 232 A/HRC/40/28, para. 11. 233 Ibid., para. 55. 54.