Juvenile Justice: How Can Reform be Brought onto the International Stage

IRIN

April 2005

An NGO Side Event on juvenile justice and state responsibility was organised by the Advisory Panel to the UN Study on Violence Against Children and the Subgroup on Juvenile Justice, NGO Group for the CRC. Jo Becker, from Human Rights Watch, chaired this meeting. She explained that, as the media give a negative view of the issue, it is a very challenging issue to work on in terms of reform and advocacy.

Professor Pinheiro added that confronting public opinion is a huge task. In Latin America for instance, public opinion is supportive of repressive measures against children. "People support treating children as criminals, because it's easy to build institutions and put kids in them. Repressive governments have widespread support for such policies", he added.

Sedffrey Candelaria (Ateneo Human Rights Centre, Philippines) said that the problem will not disappear. He emphasised that in fact it is governments' responsibilities and obligations to deal with this issue, and hence to allocate money to it. It is therefore essential to get governments to understand that they need to work on long-term solutions and to invest in this.

As Bernard Boeton, of International Federation Terres des Hommes, explained, "we have to work on public opinion. Public opinion is worried about security and terrorism, so that is where government funding is going, and governments are surfing on public opinion". To find constructive solutions, we need to engage everyone, children have to be able to participate, because change will not happen without their will. But we also need to bring to the table all those that come into contact with children affected by the juvenile justice system, including police officers and judges.

Bruce Abramson, Juvenile Justice Consultant, explained that it is a structural problem that needs structural solutions: we need to change attitudes and use society's resources, we need to instil the concept that humane justice systems must be built into comprehensive international levels (such as Millennium Development Goals). Penal law must be built into long-term plans for development.

Juvenile justice will form the subject of the chapter of the UN Study on Violence against Children. The editorial board for the Study report has indeed developed an outline for the report, which will include 8 chapters: Introduction and overview - Legal frameworks - Home and family - Schools and education settings - Other institutional settings - Community - Work situations - Conclusions and recommendations. Drafts of each chapter will be completed by the end of the year. The final report is scheduled to be presented to the UN General Assembly in 2006.