There is a serious lack of facilities for adolescents suffering from mental health problems in Ireland.
The shortfall in services for young people contravenes the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to the Amnesty report on mental health.
"Most areas are seriously short of adolescent psychiatric facilities and in some areas there are none at all," it states.
In a reference to an Irish College of Psychiatrists paper, Amnesty says the lack of dedicated adolescent mental health services reduces the ability to treat children so that "waiting lists for child psychiatry services are lengthened further by the need to respond urgently to adolescents".
The human rights group is calling on the Government to put in place a comprehensive system of adolescent psychiatric services, with proper consideration given to the special needs of those with a learning difficulty.
It is also calling for attention to be paid to the needs of children in vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, including the Travelling community and asylum-seeker and refugee families.
Amnesty says there is also a need to introduce measures to meet the mental health needs of homeless children.
The practice of placing children with mental illness in adult psychiatric institutions should end and the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child should be incorporated into Irish law, it adds.