Access to justice for children
Rehabilitation rather than punishment
Children come into contact with the law, in Uzbekistan as elsewhere, for various reasons:
- as defendants, victims or witnesses in criminal proceedings;
- as parties in сivil proceedings or administrative proceedings;
- and as victims of physical or psychological violence, sexual abuse or other crimes or rights violations.
Access to justice is the ability to seek and obtain a just, equitable and timely remedy for violations of rights. Apart from being core to the realization of children’s human rights, access to justice is central to the rule of law and to inclusive and sustainable development.
Uzbekistan still does not have specialized justice system for children in line with international standards. There are no specialized judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers. Provision of state guaranteed legal aid is only limited to children in conflict with the law.
In UNICEF, we believe that all children should benefit from the right to access to justice in line with international justice for children standards.
We closely work with the Ministry of Interior, the Prosecutor’s General Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Court, the National Agency for Social Protection, the Children’s Ombudsperson Office, NGOs ‘Madad’ and ‘Istiqbolli Avlod’ to make children’s access to justice a reality.
We support the Government with strengthening the legislative and normative frameworks on access to justice for children, capacity building of justice and legal professionals working with children and creation of child-sensitive environment and procedures..
We assisted the Government on reforming two closed institutions for children with problem behaviour.
We assisted the Investigation Department under the Ministry of Interior in introducing 3 child-sensitive interviewing rooms and waiting rooms in three locations that had been replicated to 39 locations across the country.
In cooperation with NGOs ‘Madad’ and ‘Istiqbolli Avlod’ we provided free child-friendly and gender-sensitive legal aid to more than 2,000 children and 200 adults.
Currently we are supporting the Government in developing a strategy and programme of action on children’s access to justice. The strategy will lay the grounds for a more specialized child justice systems in Uzbekistan and will service as a vision for reforms in the area of children’s access to justice.
We support the Government in bringing the system of prevention of child offending in line with international standards and introducing diversion and expanding community based alternative measures to deprivation of liberty for children in conflict with the law.
We also closely work with both the Government and NGOs to raise awareness about children’s human and legal rights and to provide child-friendly and gender-sensitive legal aid to vulnerable groups of children.