Children and Youth Participation in Transitional Justice Processes

The impact of conflict and human rights violations have long been felt by children and youth, however, it is only in the past decade that this segment of the population has risen into focus in processes of transitional justice. With its origins in the transitions to democracy that took place in Latin America in the 1980s, the field of transitional justice focuses on the challenge that societies face in dealing with a legacy of mass abuse. Through a combination of approaches—notably truth commissions, reparations, trials, and institutional reform—transitional justice aims to provide recognition to victims and foster civic trust on the path towards long-term objectives of facilitating respect for rule of law, democracy, and a stable peace. Within the work of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), factors from two very different contexts, Sierra Leone and Canada, discussed below, pointed out the need to pay greater attention to children and youth and to fashion effective strategies for including children while at the same time protecting them from trauma associated with revisiting an abusive past.