Projects

Integrating Children’s Rights and Protection into Police Training Programmes

Project launch event – March 2015

Project Duration: 2014 - 2015

The Government of Ghana has been particularly active in defending children’s rights. It recently adopted concrete measures aimed at reforming and improving the overall youth protection system. Several laws, including the Juvenile Justice Act, the Domestic Violence Act and the Children’s Act, have been enacted. In addition, two police units specialised in juvenile justice, the DOVVSU Unit (to support victims of domestic violence) and the AHTU Unit (to fight human trafficking) have been created.

As part of these reforms, Ghana’s police services called upon the joint services of the IBCR and UNICEF Ghana to lead an initiative aimed at assessing the level of practical training relating to the protection of children and their rights. The project also kicked off the development of standard operating procedures for interactions between the police and young victims, witnesses or alleged offenders.

Our goals :

• Provide Ghanaian children with better access to justice, by making long-term improvements to police practices, such as adapting them to the age of the children. Address the ethical problems faced by police officers when dealing with children and teenagers.
• Support the Ghanaian government and its partner, UNICEF, in the production of quality training tools for the protection of children and their rights.

In October 2014, three IBCR members took part in a first field mission, for strategic meetings and the gathering of information from police training organisations and various State representatives. The IBCR gathered sufficient data to begin analysing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the Ghanaian police service and its training. In the spring of 2014, the IBCR finished mapping the system and began preparing customised standard operating procedures for the country’s youth justice system’s key players for the management of cases involving children.

A second mission enabled the IBCR to finish gathering information throughout the country and to name a national consultant to support the project. The IBCR helped create a steering committee and technical workgroup, enabling Ghanaian stakeholders to lead the initiative and thus ensuring its durability.