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Cape Verde is interested in restorative juvenile justice as a means of preventing violence. This African country also wants to give children and adolescents in conflict with the law a new chance to rehabilitate themselves and to be reintegrated in society.
A Terre des hommes (Tdh) delegation composed of experts in juvenile justice from Brazil, Panama and Switzerland visited some ten institutions in the company of the highest authorities of Cape Verde, in order to better understand the judicial system of the country.
The Tdh team took advantage of this opportunity to present the basic concepts of restorative juvenile justice through interviews with children and adolescents.
Conference on juvenile justice in Cape Verde
This conference, which took place in Praia on 26 and 27 November 2015, was organised by the Cape Verde government in association with UNICEF and UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) and in collaboration with Tdh.
This meeting was a direct result of the World Congress on Juvenile Justice held in Geneva in January 2015, when representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Public Prosecutor and members of UNICEF in Cape Verde took part.
Results of the conference
Participants at the conference, which included judges, members of the police force and social workers, recognized the innovative nature of restorative juvenile justice: it gives priority above all to dialogue, to the participation of all the interested parties, and promotes responsibility, rehabilitation, compensation for the damage caused and attention to the victim.
Antoine Lissorgues, responsible for Tdh’s programmes for Latin America, presented an international panorama of juvenile justice practices, the recommendations of the 2015 World Congress, and distance training for the Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in juvenile justice.
The head of delegation in Tdh Brazil, Anselmo de Lima, presented its contributions to the Brazilian criminal justice system and highlighted the experience of Tdh in this field. For Anselmo de Lima, “Cape Verde has all the favourable conditions for applying restorative justice”.
The conference concluded with drafting a charter in which the actors of the judicial system undertook to apply restorative juvenile justice in Cape Verde. A working group will be set up to carry out an analysis of the current situation of the youngsters in Cape Verde and to draw up an operational plan.
Terre des hommes improves the lives of more than two million children and their relatives each year. Find out more about our projects of juvenile justice.
