Justice

Human rights, gender and social exclusion (part 2)

Page contents

Juveniles and justice
Gender, juveniles and transitional justice
What other resources are available on the GSDRC?
Additional information resources

Juveniles and justice

Juveniles may face particular social, financial, institutional and legal barriers when accessing justice. They are particularly susceptible to mistreatment and abuse by the police and other justice sector personnel. As well as interacting with the justice system in their own capacity, children and young people are also affected when parents or guardians are victims of crime or are sanctioned through the justice system. Juveniles should be afforded the same rights as adults by the justice system. In addition, they have specific needs relative to their age and vulnerability.

The vast majority of children who come into conflict with the law commit petty offences – often due to dire social, economic and political realities. The following two reports argue that efforts should be made to avoid criminalising children and to keep them out of the formal justice system.

Martin, F. and Parry-Williams, J., 2005, ‘The Right Not to Lose Hope: Children in Conflict with the Law – A Policy Analysis and Examples of Good Practice’, Save the Children, London
How do children end up in conflict in the law and what can be done to alleviate their plight? This report, published by Save the Children as a contribution to the UN Study on Violence Against Children, looks at children in conflict with the law in the broader context of their lives. It contains detailed case studies of community-based responses from around the world. Care and protection systems must be improved, and children's coping strategies should not be criminalised.
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United Nations Children's Fund, 2004, Justice for Children: Detention as a Last Resort, Innovative Initiatives in the East Asia and Pacific Region, UNICEF
Improving justice for children, including juvenile justice laws, policies and procedures is one of the most important strategies for enhancing the protection of children in society. But how can this best be done? This study by UNICEF of the East Asia and Pacific region argues for policies that use ‘detention as the last resort’. It concludes that diversion not only reduces the number of children deprived of their liberty, but also decreases the rate of repeat offending by young people.
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This UN document provides guidance on ensuring that children are protected by justice systems in all circumstances – including in conflict-affected and fragile states.

United Nations, 2008, ‘Guidance Note of the Secretary-General: UN Approach to Justice of Children’, United Nations, New York
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This manual identifies and discusses fifteen key indicators to measure the state of juvenile justice and to ensure the protection of children.

UNICEF/UNODC, 2007, ‘Manual for the Measurement of Juvenile Justice Indicators’, United Nations, New York
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The following report provides programme and advocacy experiences from member organisations of the Inter-Agency Coordination Panel on juvenile justice.

Inter-Agency Coordination Panel on Juvenile Justice, 2005, ‘Protecting the Rights of Children in Conflict with the Law’, Inter-Agency Coordination Panel on Juvenile Justice
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Additional case studies:

Hamilton, C., 2007, ‘Analysis of the Juvenile Justice System in Georgia’, UNICEF Georgia, Tbilisi
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Morris, C., 2008, ‘Developing a Juvenile Justice System in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Rights, Diversion and Alternatives’, Youth Justice, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 197-213
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Gender, juveniles and transitional justice

The United Nations defines transitional justice as the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation. These involve judicial and non-judicial mechanisms (with differing levels of international involvement, or none at all) that include individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking, institutional reform, vetting and dismissals, or a combination thereof.

The nature and consequences of human rights violations differ significantly for men, women and children. Transitional justice mechanisms, however, are often not designed to incorporate these differing perspectives – and the voices and needs of women and children are thus neglected.

Truth commissions, a key transitional justice mechanism, are established to research and report on massive human rights violations from armed conflict or under authoritarian regimes. The reports produced by these commissions often provide policy recommendations, including the provision of reparations. The following documents stress the importance of including a gender perspective in the work of truth commissions and in discussions of reparations. This would allow the documentation of the differing experiences of women in conflict, violence and repression; and could also promote an exploration of root causes of the conflict – including unequal power relations and gender inequality. It would also allow reparations to be tailored to the needs of women and to address social and economic inequality linked to gender.

World Bank, 2006, 'Gender, Justice, and Truth Commissions', World Bank, Washington
How have truth commissions (TCs) in societies emerging from conflict or repressive regimes incorporated a gender approach to their investigations of human right violations? What assistance could development actors, particularly the World Bank, provide to such an approach? This paper from the World Bank analyses the degree to which a gender-sensitive perspective was used in three TCs, in South Africa, Peru and Sierra Leone. It argues that a gender approach can enhance the effectiveness of reparations offered by TCs and prevent future conflicts, and that increased support from international actors might strengthen TCs’ engagement with such issues.
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Rubio-Marín, R., 2006, 'What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations', Advancing Transitional Justice Series, no. 1, International Center for Transitional Justice, Social Science Research Council, New York
What happens to women whose lives are transformed by human rights violations? This volume from the International Centre for Transitional Justice explores gender and reparations policies in Guatemala, Peru, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Timor-Leste. It argues for the systematic introduction of a gender dimension into reparations programmes as a way of acknowledging the rights of female victims.
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The following paper evaluates progress in addressing the particular experiences of women during conflict. It argues for broader changes in peace processes and transitional justice mechanisms in order to systematically ensure gender justice.

Valji, N., 2007, ‘Gender Justice and Reconciliation’, Occasional paper, no. 35, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Berlin
How do women's experiences of conflict and transition differ from those of men? What effect does this have on transitional justice mechanisms? This paper from Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation South Africa examines assumptions held within the field of transitional justice from a gendered perspective. There is a need to move beyond a focus on individual incidents of sexual violence in conflict to address the context of inequality which facilitate such violations and a continuum of violence.
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The specific needs of children have rarely been addressed in detail in the literature on transitional justice. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone is the first case where the needs of child soldiers have been incorporated into the design of a transitional justice mechanism.

Mann, N. and Theuermann, B., 2001, 'Children and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Sierra Leone: Recommendations for Policies and Procedures for Addressing and Involving Children in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission', UNICEF National Forum for Human Rights and UNAMSIL/Human Rights
This report offers recommendations for policies, guiding principles and detailed special procedures for the involvement of children in the proceedings of the TRC. It recommends that the special procedures be applied to all children. The TRC's role is seen as both to create an official record of what happened to children during the conflict in Sierra Leone, and to facilitate the reintegration of children back into their communities or host communities.
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More resources on transitional justice can be accessed on the ‘transitional justice' section of this guide.
More information on gender and reparations is available on the International Centre of Transitional Justice’s Gender and Reparations project site.

What other resources are available on the GSDRC?

Resources on access to justice can be accessed from the ‘access to justice' section of this guide.
Resources on gender and non-state justice systems can be accessed from the ‘non-state justice and security systems’ section on this guide.
More resources on gender and social exclusion can be accessed from the ‘social exclusion’ topic guide.
Further resources on human rights can be accessed from the 'human rights' topic guide.

Additional information resources

Read more on gender and justice from Siyanda.
The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) includes regional news on human rights, gender and justice issues and some online publications.
UNIFEM has resources on gender justice and a special section on violence against women.
The International Center for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy has a webpage on Juvenile Justice, which includes guidelines for the prosecution of crimes against children.
Read more on juvenile justice from Eldis.