TOKYO — Children worldwide are being beaten, raped and mutilated in untold numbers in a global scandal that governments all too often ignore, human rights group Amnesty International said in a report issued on Friday.

"The reason we wanted to emphasize the torture of children is because it is a hidden scandal," Amnesty International Secretary General Pierre Sane told Reuters. "It is a world shame as we enter the 21st century."

Some acts of torture are the result of war and political conflict.

In other cases they come at the hands of police and other state caretakers, the report said.

"Around the world we see the same patterns of abuse: There is little difference between how police beat children in China and how they treat them in Brazil; there is little difference between conditions of detention in Paraguay and Russia; and violence against children in armed conflict is equally devastating in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan."

Sane called particular attention to child abuse in detention centers, where victims are harmed by the very people to whom they have been entrusted by the legal system.

"Children in detention — criminal suspects or children who have been sentenced to detention terms by the justice systems — are punished and ill-treated behind high walls, which sometimes makes it very hard to receive information," he said in the interview.

Amnesty in October launched a yearlong campaign against torture, calling for progress in three key areas: prevention of torture, overcoming impunity and confronting discrimination.

According to the new report, "Hidden scandal, secret shame":

In some countries, beatings are considered a normal consequence of arrest, and police rely on torture for interrogation.

Boys and girls in custody are vulnerable to rape and sexual abuse both by state agents and other inmates.

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Some 100 million children live and work on the streets, where they are particularly vulnerable.

Conditions in juvenile detention centers, orphanages and other institutions can amount to torture.

Sane said that while the problems are hidden, the solutions are simple.

"The solutions are known. The solution is just to implement the law and make sure that the law is in conformity with the international standards," he said.

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