As of 2010, over 1 billion children worldwide were living in territories affected by armed conflict, over one-quarter of them under the age of five. This means the “average” civilian victim—a person killed, injured, or forced to flee his or her home—is likely to be a child or youth.

Yet despite the extent of human rights violations and crimes suffered by children, transitional justice mechanisms have frequently overlooked children’s interests and perspectives, and practitioners have only recently begun to acknowledge the significance of children’s participation in these measures.

ICTJ’s pioneering report “Through a New Lens: A Child-Sensitive Approach to Transitional Justice” analyzes experiences of four countries—Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Colombia and Nepal—and identifies some key lessons on children’s participation in transitional justice measures.

Authored by Cécile Aptel and Virginie Ladisch, this valuable assessment in a largely unexplored area of transitional justice captures crucial aspects of different practices—from flawed attempts to include children in truth-seeking efforts in Liberia and their exposure to criminal cases in Colombia and the DRC, to the struggle for an adequate approach to the re-integration of child-soldiers in Nepal.

Examining truth-seeking, criminal justice, and institutional reform measures, the report also explores how children have been integrated into reparations programs. Of the four case studies, only Colombia has an administrative reparations program that specifically identifies children as primary victims based on violations they suffered due to the “illegal recruitment of minors.” In contrast in Nepal children are only eligible to receive benefits to the extent their parents were victimized.

“At a time where we see increased attention being given to the plight of children affected by massive human rights violations within the UN system (SC resolution 1998 passed in July 2011 as the latest example), it is essential that those of us working on post-conflict and post-authoritarian transitions integrate an analysis of children into our work,” said Virginie Ladisch, co-author of the report and the head of ICTJ’s Children and Transitional Justice Program. “Greater collaboration between the fields of transitional justice and child protection is essential for creating mechanisms that better address the full range of violations suffered by children, respond to their needs, create space for their engagement, and craft effective recommendations for moving forward.”

"We hope this report will encourage policymakers to devote more attention to the needs, rights, and demands of children and youth in post-conflict situations or following legacies of abuses, such as those in the Middle East and North Africa," said Cécile Aptel.

“Through a New Lens” strongly emphasizes the importance of engaging children for the sake of preventing recurring abuses. Often in their formative years when violations occur, children affected by crimes may lose points of reference of what is acceptable behavior on an individual and societal level. Thus, the potential for cross-generational conflict and future violence make the inclusion of children a fundamental concern of any transitional justice endeavor, the report states.

“Children and youth comprise a powerful sector of society that holds the potential to either support and strengthen the establishment of rule of law and durable peace, or be a potential spoiler. Transitional justice aims to catalyze social change away from impunity, toward a culture of democracy and respect for human rights. Key agents of that are children and youth; not only are they less likely to be set in their ways, they also have the most to gain by helping solidify a durable peace,” said Ladisch.

Download the full report.

Although head-of-state prosecutions like those of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia dominate today’s headlines, they are a relatively new phenomenon. As of today there are only about 70 of such trials in modern history, mainly since the early 1980s.

In this podcast, Caitlin Reiger, director of international policy relations at ICTJ, and coeditor of Prosecuting Heads of State, a book chronicling the phenomenon of accountability at the most senior level of government, discusses this notion in the context of ongoing trials of Mubarak and Ben Ali and the calls to bring to justice current and former heads of state accused of human rights abuses.

Reiger explains the importance of this type of high-level trial in transitional contexts, saying: “These trials demonstrate that everybody, right to the very top of the chain, has responsibility for what is committed on the ground. And that even if senior leaders may not have been directly involved or even directly aware, willful ignorance of systems that they’ve set up is not going to protect them.”

She also discusses the challenges facing head-of-state trials, explaining that they can often be seen as political processes and run the risk of being turned into show trials. She warns, “One of the important things to remember is that these processes, if they’re not done well, really do risk, in all the worst senses, degenerating into show trials. Because of the symbolic power of taking on and holding to account a very senior leader, including the president of the country, the danger for it to go wrong is a very high danger.”

She then outlines necessary elements of a successful trial, including an independent judiciary, transparency, and compliance with international fair trial and due process standards. Reiger comments, “Balancing those things, while ensuring full respect for rights of the defense, really goes toward needing to preserve public trust in the process. If there’s not public trust in the process—because it hasn’t been independent or fair—it means that whatever the outcome, it’ll continue to be challenged and disputed and ultimately the trial’s impact lessened.”

The Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina (YIHR BH) is a branch of a regional network of nongovernmental organizations in the former Yugoslavia formed by young people to encourage youth participation in the democratization of their society.

In this podcast, Alma Masic, YIHR BH director, discusses their work on virtual memorials related to the mass atrocities that occurred in Bosnia in the 1990s and the significance of truth and memory in the region.

Virtual memorials, such as their current project Srebrenica Mapping Genocide, provide an educational tool that is accessible to audiences all around the world. The online memorials aim to “establish a basis for future research, studying, education, and so on, in a very reliable, objective, factual way.”

Masic further explained the importance of memory in the country, because denial remains about what really happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s. “We really have to start the process of facing the past, and the faster we accept it, the faster we acknowledge what really happened…the more we have a chance to move forward and move on.”

In addition to creating virtual memorials, YIHR BH brings together youth in the region. “Through watching movies, discussing the issues and human rights, spending free time together, and just developing this, the young people are breaking prejudice, learning about each other, and developing new relationships that will be very much needed in the future once they become decision-makers.”

ICTJ recently held a meeting in Amman, Jordan on gender and transitional justice as a part of a series of activities seeking to provide women policymakers and activists with the tools needed to engage in transitional justice initiatives. The conference was a four day event involving 25 participants from Palestine, Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt.

In this podcast, Kelli Muddell, director of ICTJ’s Gender Justice Program, discusses some of the topics that arose at the conference as well as future plans for the region. Although women have been at the forefront of protests in certain countries, such as Tunisia and Egypt, “they often fall by the wayside once the transitions take place and once new leaders come to power,” Muddell said.

One key topic brought up at the conference was the issue of sequencing, or what transitional justice mechanisms should be implemented first. “There is sort of an impatience of wanting to see something done, and wanting to see people held accountable,” Muddell said. “But there needed to be an acknowledgement that these processes can take a really long time. And just because something may not happen right away…doesn’t mean a process can’t come into being later on.”

Muddell also noted that exchanges between countries on what initiatives they're working on and what strategies they have implemented has proven to be really helpful in advancing transitional justice. Thus, they developed the idea of starting a network of gender and transitional justice in the region, through some type of web platform, where activists could continue to share their experiences and “stay connected in a regionally focused way.”

Tunisia has been a focal point for the world’s eye since early this year. In the past two weeks, the originator of the “Arab Spring” made steps toward accountability first with a 35-year in-absentia sentence for former President Ben Ali and then officially joining the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) by ratifying the Rome Statute.

In this week’s podcast Habib Nassar, director of ICTJ’s Middle East and North Africa Program, addresses questions of fairness and credibility of the in-absentia trial of Ben Ali, the relationship between economic and human rights crimes, and the significance of the ratification of the Rome Statute.

There remains a need for a “comprehensive approach to establish the truth about what happened, and to hold those responsible accountable and to provide reparations to the victims of human rights violations,” Nassar said.

But the steps taken to date have been positive. “I think these are all very significant developments for human rights and for justice and accountability in the region,” he added.

Suliman Baldo, director of ICTJ’s Africa Program, just returned from the Ivory Coast, where he was one of three members of a UN Commission of Inquiry that delivered a report on post-election violence to the UN Human Rights Council on June 15. The report details many serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law following the disputed November 28, 2010 election in which incumbent president Laurent Gbago refused to step down for president-elect Alassane Ouattara.

“The Human Rights Council of the United Nations,” Baldo explains, “decided to establish an independent commission of inquiry and to send it to the Ivory Coast to investigate the events and the facts of what occurred…and to identify authors of violations in order to uphold accountability.”

This year’s Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, beginning on June 16 in New York, will feature two films directly related to ICTJ’s work in Colombia.

In this week’s podcast Michael Reed Hurtado, head of ICTJ’s Colombia program, discusses justice and accountability in the context of Colombia’s transition and ongoing armed conflict, and how the films La Toma (The Siege) and Impunity reflect the processes he sees on the ground.

La Toma documents the struggle for truth of a group of families brought together by the disappearance of their loved ones in the 1985 siege of the Palace of Justice, home to Colombia’s Supreme Court. Impunity is the story of the impact of the controversial Justice and Peace Law on the families of victims and their search for the truth about their loved ones who were disappeared by right-wing paramilitaries.

Reed Hurtado explains the obstacles to justice presented in both documentaries. The Colombian justice system “is confronted by very powerful interests and incredibly violent criminal apparatuses. Moreover, political will is often lacking, especially when criminal investigations point to criminal alliances between paramilitary groups and political, economic and military elites.”

But the films “definitely contribute towards accountability and the struggle against impunity,” he says. “These types of films in Colombia are very novel: documentaries might be popular in Europe and the United States but it is very new to have these types of issues being dealt with by such high-quality films in Colombia.”

Read more and see trailers for the films

Earlier this month, South Africa’s Department of Justice and Constitutional Development proposed draft regulations relating to reparations for apartheid-era victims. These regulations offer educational and medical benefits to apartheid victims who testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission before it released its 2003 report. This includes about 16,000 listed victims and their children, excluding a large number who did not testify before the list of victims was closed.

Some victim support groups and activists are skeptical of the proposed regulations. They show concern that politicians are not adequately addressing the needs of many victims of apartheid.

In an ICTJ podcast, Dr. Marjorie Jobson, National Director of the Khulumani Support Group–one of the most prominent victim support groups in South Africa–assesses the draft regulations and puts forth ideas on how to better address victims’ needs.

ICTJ is pleased to present Burma Soldier, a harrowing documentary telling the story of Myo Myint, a soldier for the Burmese army turned pro-democracy activist.

Myo Myint’s extraordinary story brings him from the front lines of a little talked about war, to fighting for democracy alongside Aung San Suu Kyi, to solitary confinement in Burma’s toughest prisons.

Narrated by Colin Farrell, the Break Thru Films and leBrocquy Fraser production provides a rare glimpse of a brutal dictatorship seen through the eyes of a courageous former soldier who, quite literally, swapped sides.

As he goes from soldier to activist to prisoner to refugee, his message became increasingly clear: any lasting transition requires a political resolution to Burma’s violent ethnic conflict.

“In criminal prosecutions,” Mr. Carranza explains, “the focus is really on the accused person, on the alleged perpetrator, and not on the victim. On the other hand, in reparations programs, the focus is on the victim.”

“We brought Guy Mushiata, our colleague from the DRC, who talked about women victims of sexual violence related to conflict who have sued before the different courts of the DRC. More than 200 of them—200 victims—have obtained judgments, many of them in their favor, ordering reparations to be paid. None of these women have ever received anything from the state.”

Mr. Carranza points out that the writers of the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, were caught in debate over whether the court should have a mandate to provide reparations, and in the end it became the first international criminal court with the power to do so.

“One of the very basic things that the international community can do,” Mr. Carranza recommends, “is support national reparations programs. The second way is for the international community to provide voluntary contributions to the Trust Fund for Victims, so that the TFV itself can expand its role and its assistance mandate.”

Third, Mr. Carranza adds, the international community should “assist the court in the freezing, identification and recovery of assets of perpetrators because under the Rome Statute system, once there is a conviction, [the assets could be] forfeited, and will go to reparations.”