Child Justice Program

The Child Justice Program is a large and successful program that focuses on poor children in contact with the law. Cambodian poor families live under strenuous circumstances and their children are at risk to become involved in (petty) crime. The root of the problem is poverty and the children who make mistakes deserve another chance in life. Legal Aid of Cambodia’s Child Justice Program works on a fair child justice system in order to give these children a second chance in life. The Child Justice Program promotes children’s rights as enumerated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The specific objectives of the Child Justice Program are:

Ensuring that local authorities and other relevant stakeholders have sufficient capacity for and basic knowledge of children’s rights and laws related to children
Strengthening the justice system in Cambodia in order to enforce the protection of children.
Preventing children from coming into conflict with the law through outreach, diversion strategies, rehabilitation, and informational “street law” sessions.

The main activities of the program are:

Legal representation, consultation, and advice for children who are in conflict with the law and their families
Training of law enforcement officers to raise awareness and respect for laws relating to children and child rigts and and enhancing cooperation between various stakeholders and law enforcement officers.
Advocacy on behalf of children to promote a fair justice system for children and lobby for a separate juvenile justice system. The Child Justice Program focuses its advocacy on the often harsh and hostile treatment of children by government officials and lobbies for better circumstances of imprisoned children who are often locked up together with adults under dire and dangerous circumstances.
In 2007 the Child Justice Program identified two legal problems that worsen the position of children in conflict with the law. The first problem is excessive pre-trial detention. The justice system does not have a foolproof mechanism to prevent children being held beyond the legal limit of 1 or 2 months before trial. Some of our juvenile clients are detained for much longer periods (6 months is not uncommon) before they are brought before the judge. The Child Justice Program considers this unacceptable and does everything possible to arrange timely trials for its juvenile clients.
The second problem is the Law on Aggravating Circumstances that judges fully apply to children. This often leads to very severe punishments, e.g. five years for the stealing of a pot and a plate or a pair of shoes. The Law on Aggravating Circumstances is applied in child justice cases in about 75% of the cases. In the summer of 2007, the Child Justice Program advocated that the Law on Aggravating Circumstances should not be applied to children, and the Constitutional Council ruled favorably on this issue. The Child Justice Program continues to advocate to have this stated in the new Cambodian Penal Code.
Outreach by working together with local communities to identify and work with children who are at risk and to inform people on the rights of children in conflict with the law. Outreach activities also take place in the prison, to educate the children in prison on their rights during their imprisonment.

Publications and studies of the Child Justice Program are:

Cambodian Laws and the Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Comparative Study (updated 2007)
Protecting the Rights of Children in the Cambodian Justice System, A Handbook for Judges, Prosecutors, Lawyers and Police
Securing Children’s Rights in Cambodia: Pre-trial Detention and Legal Representation for Minors
Juvenile Legal Rights: From the Moment of Arrest to Trial
Poster detailing The Act of Rape in Cambodia

These publications are designed for use as a training tool by court officials, law enforcers, government agencies and non-governmental organizations and as a reference guide when such persons are faced with a situation involving children.

Excessive Detention is a Violation of Children’s Rights English

Excessive Detention is a Violation of Children’s Rights Khmer