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The regional project elaborated by the International Bureau for Children’s Rights on law enforcement agents’ training on the rights of the child was launched in November 2009, to mark the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The project brought together the International Organisation of la Francophonie (OIF), Francopol and the International Bureau for Children’s Rights (IBCR), as well as a dozen police schools based predominantly in francophone West Africa. The first meeting took place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and raised awareness on the importance of the rights of the child, most notably on the implementation of the principle of the best interest of the child in police practice. What soon became clear though, was that police forces seemed to master the vocabulary and terminology associated with the rights of the child, but didn’t have a deep understanding of their meaning and practical application. Similarly, several police forces had engaged in trainings on the rights of the child, but had done so only for short and non-assessed sessions offered by external consultants which yielded no concrete impact on the integration of the rights of the child in their everyday work. Drawing from these observations, OIF, Francopol and the IBCR decided that action was needed to properly train police forces of Western and Central Africa on the application of international standards in juvenile justice. For this purpose they organised a workshop which was held in Cotonou, Benin, from 13 to 15 December 2010. To better tackle the challenge, the IBCR also suggested the establishment of a series of consistent, integrated and practical trainings in participating police schools along with a system of knowledge sharing and monitoring, which would enable concrete and lasting results. At this meeting participants established the foundations for a more ambitious aimed at diffusing and disseminating norms regarding the protection and promotion of the rights of the child in contact with the law.
To read the agenda for the regional workshop held in Cotonou, click here These countries are:
In collaboration with UNICEF and Save the Children Sweden, the IBCR subsequently organised a five day workshop in Dakar, Senegal, which took place from 19 to 23 September 2011. Bringing together forty international experts on children’s rights, the workshop specifically focused on law enforcement agents’ training on the rights of the child, concentrating notably on: · Training tools for law enforcement agents dealing with children’s right
· A definition of the core-competencies required from law enforcement agents dealing with children
· The elaboration of a law enforcement agents’ training programme The workshop contributed to the improvement and validation of the analyses and proposals made by the IBCR, and thus strengthened their proposed approach. The involvement of the IBCR was also meaningful as the analyses and documents they produced would subsequently be presented to police school officers and representatives at the third regional workshop to be held in Niamey, Niger, from 31 October to 4 November 2011. Thanks to the support of vital partners including Save the Children and UNICEF, the IBCR invited lawyers, psychologists, social workers, police officers, child protection specialists, representatives of concerned NGOs, UN officials and consultants from 20 countries, to take part in the workshop. Their attendance contributed to the development of an improved training system, to be primarily used by all those authorities responsible for ensuring that the laws on the rights of the child are being upheld.
Drawing from the contributions collected at the workshop in Dakar, the next step suggested by the IBCR envisaged the organization of another meeting gathering all countries participating in the project with the purpose of validating what had been done so far. Thanks to the renewed support of the International Organisation of la Francophonie, UNICEF, the State Department, the Ministry of Interior, Public Safety, Decentralization and Religious Affairs of the Republic of Niger, the third regional workshop on law enforcement agents’ training on the rights of the child took place. It was on this occasion, in Niamey, Niger, from 31 October to 4 November 2011, that the largest delegation ever, counting over sixty participants, came together. Law enforcement agents responsible for trainings coming from the 14 aforementioned countries and Haiti, as well as representatives from UNICEF and Save the Children Sweden were present. The major achievement of this workshop was the formal adoption by consensus of the 15 present countries of the six core competencies that the international experts had assented to a month before in Dakar. These core competencies are:
· Knowledge, promotion and implementation of the rights of the child
· Knowledge and practical implementation of the rules of ethics · Understanding of the development of the child
· Interactions and communications between the child and his family as well as his surrounding environment
· Collaboration with all formal and informal stakeholders for an effective coordination of the intervention
· Efficient use of tools adapted to children In all participating countries these competencies will therefore constitute the core of law enforcement agents’ training. Furthermore, the workshop in Niamey allowed each delegation to elaborate and bring forward a national action plan aiming at the implementation of an initial training on those core competencies in police schools. This would be done taking into account the different characteristics and dynamics of each country as well as projects that may already exist in certain police schools. Another important aspect of the project consists of the compilation and analysis of training tools for law enforcement agents dealing with children’s rights. The IBCR has already collected over a hundred training tools from 30 countries around the world. The analysis is presented in two documents which complete each other, they can also be used separately: an Excel table and a Word document. The Excel table provides brief and structured information based on the parameters used in the analysis of each document. The word document displays a more substantial study, encompassing a brief summary of each tool, a synthesis of the exam of all tools as well as recommendations advanced by the IBCR on how the tools could possibly be improved.
These documents will be updated on a regular basis.
To read the proceedings of the FRANCOPOL regional conference held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Click here
Since then, the IBCR has been working to strengthen the collaboration with police training schools based in the countries of the region, while at the same time developing a close partnership with UNICEF’s regional office for Western and Central Africa, UNICEF’s offices in participating countries, the non- governmental organisation Save the Children Sweden, and local NGOs operating in relevant countries. Thanks to the support and collaboration of these various actors, the project assumed a more regional dimension as fourteen francophone countries of Western and Central Africa are now taking part in the project.
Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Mali,
Mauritania, Niger, Central African Republic, Senegal, Chad, Togo.
Note also the contribution of Haiti to this project.
To read the report of the validation workshop held in Niamey, click here
To read the report of the Dakar expert’s workshop, click here
Since November 2011, the IBCR has been working in collaboration with the different partners involved in the project to support countries to carry out and fulfill their national action plans.
To consult the Word document analysis of training tools, click here
To consult the Excel table analysis of training tools, click here