CRC/C/COD/CO/3-5 (c) Promote alternative measures to detention, such as diversion, probation, mediation, counselling or community service, wherever possible, and ensure that detention is used as a last resort and for the shortest possible period of time and that it is reviewed on a regular basis with a view to withdrawing it; (d) In cases where detention is unavoidable, ensure that the children are not detained together with adults and that detention conditions are compliant with international standards, including with regard to access to education and health services; (e) Expedite the full and effective implementation of the provisions of the Child Protection Code establishing the minimum age of criminal responsibility and establish the age of criminal majority at 18 years; (f) Ensure that children are protected and not affected in the anti-crime campaigns of the State party and provide physical and psychological rehabilitation for victims of such campaigns. Child victims and witnesses of crimes 46. The Committee recommends that the State party ensure, through adequate legal provisions and regulations, that all children who are victims and/or witnesses of crimes, for example, child victims of abuse, violence, sexual and economic exploitation and abduction, and child witnesses of such crimes, are provided with the protection required by the Convention and that the State party take fully into account the Guidelines on Justice in Matters involving Child Victims and Witnesses of Crime. Follow-up to the Committee’s previous concluding observations and recommendations on the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflict 47. The Committee regrets that the State party did not provide any information, either in its report or in its replies to the list of issues, concerning the recommendations contained in its concluding observations relating to the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflict (CRC/C/OPAC/COD/CO/1). The Committee notes the State party’s action plan to combat the recruitment and use of children, and other violations of children’s rights, by the armed forces and security services (2012), as well as information provided by the State party that commanders of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo listed in the final report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (S/2009/603, annex 124) who were responsible for child recruitment, the use of child soldiers and massacres of civilians, have been convicted and are currently serving prison sentences. Nevertheless, it remains seriously concerned that large numbers of children continue to be killed, maimed, raped, recruited and used in armed hostilities, both by the national armed forces and non-State armed groups. In particular, the Committee is seriously concerned that: (a) Despite some improvements, there are reports of cases of involvement of children in the activities of the national armed forces and reports of collaboration of the national armed forces with armed groups that are known for the recruitment or use of child soldiers; (b) The age verification procedures used by the national armed forces prior to recruitment remain ineffective, a situation that is exacerbated by the low birth registration rate in the country; 15