Children’s Rights Behind Bars

The Howard League is working on an international project called Children’s Rights Behind Bars. The participation project, co-funded by the European Union, aims to improve detention conditions for children and enhance the legal protections for children deprived of their liberty.

The Howard League helped to produce the first European practical guide dedicated to the monitoring of places where children are deprived of liberty. The second Children’s Rights Behind Bars project builds on this work to ensure that children’s rights are enshrined in policy and practice.

As part of this project, the Howard League has built on our legal work with children in prison. The Children’s Rights Behind Bars project has worked with children in custody, listened to their views and experiences and empowered them to use the rights under the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child to improve their experiences and life chances. We have also worked with professionals across the youth justice system to ensure that children leaving prison are given appropriate support and that their views are listened to and taken into account.

The final conference of the Children’s Rights Behind Bars project takes place on 26 November in Brussels.

The EU handbook, which include examples of good practice in children’s participation, will be launched at the conference.  You can download it here.

Read our national report here.

Our European partners are DCI Belgium, DCI Italy and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.