Projects

Assessment of the Juvenile Justice System

Situation validation workshop – Rabat – April 2015

Assessing and improving the efficiency of the juvenile justice system

Project Duration: 2015

Concerned about the fate of children in contact with the law, the Government of Morocco recently undertook a reform of its juvenile justice system. As part of this endeavour, in 2015 a project was led by UNICEF and IBCR aimed at assessing the Moroccan juvenile justice system and identifying ways to improve it. The capacities of the judicial needed to be reinforced in order to better integrate international rules and standards for the protection of children’s rights into its operations.

Our goals :

The goals of the programme were to:

• Analyse the country’s juvenile justice system, with a particular focus on interactions between the system’s various components.
• Provide recommendations on policies, structures, procedures and management practices pertaining to children in contact with the law.

To carry out this mission, the IBCR team met and interviewed several key players of the justice system and children in rescue centres. The children were invited to speak about their interactions with the justice system. We also visited many institutions (juvenile detention facilities, health units, intake units for women and children victims of domestic violence, etc.) in the country’s biggest cities to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the judicial system.

During the kick-off workshop, which included representatives from the various ministries involved, project stakeholders were given the opportunity to voice their concerns.

Finally, three regional workshops were held in Marrakech, Tangier and Casablanca to assess the intake procedures for the country’s child victims and children in conflict with the law. Many professionals (prosecutors, judges, police officers, social workers, NGO workers, representatives from the Ministry of Youth and Sports) were asked to speak about and identify the juvenile justice system’s good and bad practices, in order to reinforce the protection of children’s rights in the short term.

At the end of the observation and analysis period, an assessment of the situation and a series of recommendations were produced and presented to the Moroccan government.