The Conference is designed as a three-day event, targeting key groups such as the administration of justice, children deprived of liberty and the professionals who work with them, children on the move, children in institutions and children detained in the context of armed conflict. The programme will include plenary sessions, break out group discussions and intergenerational dialogues, fostering collaboration and exchange.
Welcome to the Conference on Justice for Children deprived of liberty, a three-day event (Geneva & hybrid) addressing critical issues that affect children in the justice system.
This Conference is tailored for justice practitioners, child rights experts, state representatives, professionals working with children deprived of liberty, children in institutions, children held in immigration detention and children detained in armed conflict scenarios under national security concerns.
Join us to advance justice for children worldwide! Your participation and insights can drive significant change and foster a more just and equitable future for all children.
OBJECTIVES
Our Conference aims to achieve the following objectives:
Assess advancements and identify obstacles for each chapter of the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty based on the 2023-2024 Roadmap to Action.
Develop and promote multi-stakeholder approaches to find effective alternatives to child detention.
Foster partnerships to support the implementation of the UN Global Study recommendations and leverage SDG 16 to enhance justice for children.
Highlight successful initiatives, such as non-custodial measures that facilitate the reintegration of children into society.
Advocate for policies and practices that prevent child detention and support reintegration.
CONTEXT: The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has launched the process for its next General Comment no. 27 on Children’s Rights to Access to Justice and Effective Remedies
GOAL: This workshop will be an opportunity to bring together the main players in the field of justice for children, as well as children themselves. It will spark focus group discussions on how to improve access to justice for children and on the recommendations that should be made to states.
One of the pillars of the DCI Movement is participatory, rights-based decision-making with children in all areas and actions that affect them. DCI believes that children are defenders of their rights and agents of change. Children's participation is about giving them space, allowing them to express their voices, and ensuring that their views are given due weight. Children who have been working on the subject of justice and deprivation of liberty will participate in the three days of the Conference and inform the debates with their views and ideas.
In the framework of the Conference, DCI will organise the 2nd edition of its Children’s Rights Award. The 2024 Award will be dedicated to justice for children deprived of liberty. It will highlight the way in which children's rights are perceived by those most directly concerned - the children themselves.
The Award ceremony will be on the evening of the first day (17 December), highlighting the importance of children’s participation and recognising children as defenders of their own rights.
Beyond the creations of the two international winners, there will be also an exhibition of the best creations of winners at the national level.
The Global Conference on Justice for Children Deprived of Liberty will feature an exhibition by Roberto Brancolini that sheds light on pressing global issues using the art of photojournalism. His work in the photographic exhibition "Children of a Lesser God," vividly depicts the unlawful arrest of children in Palestine and judicial procedures that violate the principles of the rule of law and fair trial, concerning the arbitrary detention and prosecution of Palestinian children in the Israeli military system. His photographs have appeared in prestigious Italian and international publications, including la Stampa, la Repubblica, Avvenire and l'Espresso. His commitment to social justice is also reflected in his booklets on Palestine and Chiapas, which give voice to often overlooked stories.
Rights Award Ceremony and Exhibition
The DCI Children's Rights Award Ceremony and Exhibition: "I want justice NOW!" will take place during the Global Conference on Justice for Children Deprived of Liberty and will feature voices of children through an exhibition of their artwork submitted to the competition. The exhibition will be inaugurated with an Award Ceremony on 17th December at 18:30 (reserved for the participants of the Global Conference), celebrating the creativity of the participants and honouring the winners. This event marks a significant moment, commemorating the 45th anniversary of DCI (1979), 35th of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), and 5th anniversary of the presentation of the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty to the UN General Assembly (2019). It serves as a reminder of the work that remains to be done to ensure justice and rights for all children.
You can find the presentation of the Children's Rights Award here.
The experts - national and international, children and adults - who will speak at the Conference have experience in different areas of children’s rights and have a recognised competence and vocation in this field. A balance between local, national, regional, and international levels will be ensured among the speakers .
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Professor Jennifer Davidson is the Executive Director of the Institute for Inspiring Children’s Futures, and its Inspiring Children’s Futures Doctoral Research Centre. Jennifer works to embed children’s human rights into the delivery of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, for example as Project Director of the access-to-justice project: Justice for Children, Justice for All Global Initiative on behalf of the United Nations-sponsored Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies. During COVID, working in partnership with a wide range of international partners, Jennifer initiated and leads the international ‘COVID 4P Log for Children’s Wellbeing’ Smartphone App project. Jennifer is the Founding Director of the leading improvement and innovation centre, the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection at the University of Strathclyde. Jennifer was awarded an OBE in the 2020 Queen’s Honours for services to the care and protection of children in Scotland and abroad.
Former member and Chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (1999 – 2007), he was also the General Rapporteur of the Third World Congress on Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents (2008) and member of the Editorial Board for the UN Study on Violence against Children (2003-2006). He was involved in the creation of DCI and established DCI’s national Dutch section in 1984. Jaap Doek is the special legal advisor of ECPAT and in that capacity, he was involved in the drafting of the Terminology Guidelines for the protection of children from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse (also known as The Luxembourg Guidelines 2016) and in the production of the Explanatory report to the Guidelines (Bangkok: ECPAT sept. 2019). He was also involved in the development of the Guidelines for the Implementation of the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography which were adopted by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UN Doc. CRC/C/156, 10 September 2019).
Professor Virginia Gamba was appointed Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict at the Under-Secretary-General level in April 2017. She served most recently as Assistant Secretary-General, Head of the Joint Investigative Mechanism Syria (SC Res 2235 and 2319). She previously served as Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs and Director of the Office for Disarmament Affairs. Past engagements with the United Nations include serving as Director of the Disarmament and Conflict Resolution Programme at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva (1992-1996). Ms. Gamba has a long career in peace and security, human security, and disarmament issues.
Meskerem Geset Techane is a human rights lawyer, and a keen advocate of women’s and girls’ rights. From 2017 to 2023 she was a member of the United Nations Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women and girls in law and in practice. She previously held positions as a High Court Judge in Ethiopia, and Deputy Director of the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA). Meskerem Geset Techane has worked closely with the African human rights mechanisms and was involved in drafting African Union human rights laws, policies, and studies. She served as an expert member in different Working Groups of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and collaborated with the various Special Rapporteurs of the Commission. Meskerem Geset Techane also held the position of Commissioner for Women and Children’s Rights within the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
Prof. Dr. Ton Liefaard is former Vice-Dean of Leiden Law School and he holds the UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is the Head of the Department of Child Law and the founder of the Master’s Programme (LL.M) Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights. He also coordinates the Leiden Summer School on International Children’s Rights. He teaches and publishes widely on issues related to international children’s rights, juvenile justice, child friendly justice, deprivation of liberty of children, violence against children and access to justice for children. Ton Liefaard regularly works as a consultant for international organizations, including UN agencies, the Council of Europe and the European Union. He was a member of the International Advisory Board of the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty.
On 30 May 2019, the Secretary-General appointed Dr. Najat Maalla M’jid (Morocco) as his Special Representative on Violence against Children. Dr. Maalla M’jid took her position on 1st July 2019. Dr. Maalla M’jid, a medical doctor in paediatrics, has over the last three decades devoted her life to the promotion and protection of children’s rights. Dr. Maalla M’jid was a member of the Moroccan National Council on Human Rights and founder of the non-governmental organisation Bayti, the first programme addressing the situation of children living and working in the streets of Morocco. From 2008 to 2014, she served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. Dr. Maalla M’jid also worked as an Expert-Consultant for national and international projects, strategies and policies relating to child rights’ promotion and protection.
Mikiko Otani is an international human rights lawyer based in Tokyo where practicing family law with focus on women’s and children’s rights. She is a member and former Chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, Council Member of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, and former Chair of the Committee on International Human Rights of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations. She is also the country representative of Japan for the Family Law and Family Rights Section of LAWASIA (The Law Association for Asia and the Pacific). The areas of her focus include child justice, human rights education, early childhood development, child participation, girl child, child marriage, human trafficking, and migrant children. As a leading woman lawyer representing civil society in Japan, Ms. Otani was an Alternate Representative of the Delegation of Japan to the 60th and the 61st UN General Assembly (Third Committee) (2005-2006) and an Advisor (NGO Representative) of the Delegation of Japan to the 53rd UN Commission on the Status of Women (2009). In 2024, Mikiko Otani was elected president of Child Rights Connect.
Manfred Nowak is Secretary General of the Global Campus of Human Rights in Venice, Italy, Professor of International Human Rights at Vienna University and Director of the Vienna Master of Arts in Human Rights (Austria). He previously served in various expert functions, such as UN Expert on enforced disappearances (1993-2006), UN Special Rapporteur on torture (2004-2010), judge at the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina (1996-2003), and Vice-Chairperson of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (2013-2018). In 2016 he was appointed Independent Expert leading the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty. He was Director of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights at Utrecht University (SIM, 1987-1989) and of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights at Vienna University (BIM, 1992-2019), as well as Visiting Professor at the University of Lund, Sweden, (2002-2003), the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva (2008-2009), and at Stanford University in Palo Alto, USA, (2014). He is author of more than 600 publications in the fields of public international law and human rights.
Director, Child Protection
Sheema’s UNICEF career, spans both development and complex humanitarian contexts. She has been in her current role as UNICEF Director of Child Protection and Migration for a year. Prior to this, she has been UNICEF Representative in Iraq, Afghanistan and Deputy Representative in Afghanistan and Bangladesh. In her various roles, she has led Programmes which focussed on making sustainable changes in systems, policy and service delivery for children and women. Sheema is well experienced in advocating for child rights in complex emergencies.
Prior to these, Sheema was Chief of Child Protection Programme in Somalia and in Ghana. Sheema’s UNICEF career began in Child Protection, with a focus on developing Psychosocial Support Programmes for UNICEF’s emergency response. In the last two decades Sheema has worked in India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Ghana, Somalia, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Iraq. A Malaysian national, she holds a Master’s in Clinical Psychology and practiced as a Psychologist and worked for The Calcutta Samaritans prior to joining UNICEF.
Ann Skelton is a Professor of Law at the University of Pretoria. She is also the Director of the Centre for Child Law which promotes children’s rights in South Africa through advocacy, law reform, research, and litigation. She is a practicing lawyer who often appears in South African courts, arguing landmark children’s rights cases. She has worked as a children’s rights lawyer in South Africa for 30 years. Her global influence has been recognised through the Juvenile Justice Without Borders Award (2017), her involvement as chairperson of the Advisory Board of the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of their Liberty and being appointed as an Ambassador for the British Society of Criminology. Ann Skelton is currently a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, having been elected in 2020 for a second term of office. In 2023, she was elected Chairperson of the Committee.
Founder and director of Defence for Children International – Belgium, Benoit Van Keirsbilck has worked on issues relating to child justice as well as deprivation of liberty leading him to actively work towards the realisation of the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of their Liberty as part of its Advisory Board. He has a rich and broad experience: working in the field alongside children and families, legal expertise, evaluation of social and legal systems, training of professionals, writing articles and publishing books, monitoring legal proceedings at national and international levels, participation in expert committees, and teaching. Benoit Van Keirsbilck is member and teacher at the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Rights of the Child (Centre interdisciplinaire des Droits de l’Enfant – CIDE) an academic Research and Training Center, since 2007 and Editor in Chief – Journalist at the “Children’s right journal” (Journal du Droit des Jeunes), since 1990. In 2021, Benoit Van Keirsbilck was appointed as member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
