Children and Youth
Cyber-crime during the COVID-19 pandemic
The pandemic of COVID-19 and the imposed lockdown has led to more people to be confined at home with many more hours to spend online each day and increasingly relying on the Internet to access services they normally obtain offline.
Zoom: Archive treasure: The unpublished album of David Seymour
It all began in the autumn of 2017 with the exploration of UNESCO’s audiovisual collections after their transfer to the Organization’s archives. Most of the collections had barely been indexed in their almost seventy years of existence. Walking through these archives was a bit like visiting Jorges Luis Borges’ The Library of Babel. With thousands of documents in the archives the only way to get an idea of how the collection was organized was simply to open the drawers of the many old filing cabinets and take a look inside.
How organized crime is expanding during the COVID-19 crisis
Over the last century organized crime has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to rapidly adapt to mutated social political and economic conditions. While in some cases this adaptation was the result of a reactive response to improved legislation targeting their interests in many others it was ignited by the pursuit of new possibilities for economic profit. Examples in this sense include how quickly criminal groups adapted to new scenarios created for instance by geopolitical changes the integration of global markets or the generalized use of the world wide web as a marketplace for a variety of licit and illicit goods and services.
The principles of equality and non-discrimination under viral attack: Stigma, hate speech, xenophobia, racism and discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic
The principle of equality – the belief that all human beings are born free and equal – along with the correlated prohibition on discrimination are foundations of society. Equality is one of the most basic aspects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a pillar on which the United Nations (UN) was founded in 1945. Yet following the emergence of the coronavirus in December 2019 this long-established fundamental human right is being increasingly threatened. Indeed as the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Fernand de Varennes observed “COVID-19 is not just a health issue; it can also be a virus that exacerbates xenophobia hate and exclusion.”
Community resilience: Insights from UNICRI experience in the Sahel-Maghreb
In physics “resilience” is a measure of how well a material such as rubber or metal responds to pressure by bending adapting and changing without breaking. However this concept is more than a scientific term. Resiliency can also describe a community’s ability to bounce back from pressures including natural disasters economic downturns and - in the case of UNICRI’s Pilot Project on Countering Radicalisation and Violent Extremism in the Sahel-Maghreb - violence and terrorism. In the Sahel and Maghreb the pressure on communities is certainly intense and ever-growing. Conflicts in Libya and Mali threaten to spill over porous borders while drought and desertification have increased food insecurity and heightened intercommunal tensions. Increasingly active extremist militant groups have brought violence and chased out tourists which once had been an importance source of income. Now more than ever an approach aimed at building the resilience at a community level is needed - one that can empower communities to respond to these pressures by adapting and changing without “breaking” and entering into conflict.
No one is left behind in the fight of the EU against violent extremism
31st January 2019 at the European Parliament in Brussels several officials experts researchers and journalists concerned with finding solutions to the rise of violent extremism in the Maghreb and Sahel region gathered to share insights on a 5 million euros European Union (EU) funded programme implemented by UNICRI.
Youth: The phenomenon of returning foreign terrorist fighters and its challenges
The phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) is a matter of great concern for the international community. Newspapers and media are full of stories pertaining to the radicalization of young people who left their country of origin to engage in violent extremism in other countries.
The resiliency of the UN staff member’s oath of office
This is not the first time that I have been asked how we can succeed in advancing the values of the United Nations in the most critical situations. It is a good question. Even those who have served in peace missions for over thirty years cannot provide a single answer to this question.
Infocus: The companion to international humanitarian law. A practical approach to the dissemination of International Humanitarian Law
Lived-experience-and-strengths-based strategies for persons with mental illness who offended and their family members
This essay describes lived-experience based strategies for persons with mental illness who offended (PMIO) and their families. These recommendations are derived from the results of a multidisciplinary research project which aimed to develop multidisciplinary strengths-based strategies for PMIO and their families. These recommendations can inspire a broad range of practitioners and policy makers from the criminal justice system as well as the mental health systems working with PMIO and their family.
Youth engagement and resilience against violent extremism in the Sahel
On the sidelines of the 74th session of UNGA on 24 September 2019 UNICRI the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) and the Global Center on Cooperative Security (the Global Centre) - in collaboration with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Mission of Senegal to the United Nations - organised a panel on the critical role that youth play across the Sahel in preventing and countering violent extremism.
The process to radicalization and violentization
During these last years some countries around the world have been attacked by terrorists’ violence and the number of citizens who choose to become foreign fighters has increased.
The school under a bridge in New Delhi
For the past nine years Rajesh Kumar Sharma has been operating a makeshift school between two pillars of the aerial metro that runs across India’s capital. More than 200 children from the surrounding slums attend this open-air classroom every day.
Coronavirus: In Timbuktu youth is at the forefront of raising awareness against COVID-19
In its efforts to raise awareness against the coronavirus the association “The voice of the students of Timbuktu” has just trained around thirty young people in respect of measures to stop the contagion. The training can be recognized as a means to strengthen the prevention of COVID-19 in Timbuktu where nothing seems to worry the population.
The young people of Mali: Key players against COVID-19
The world is shaken by an unprecedented health crisis. Its multiple ravages are echoing all over the world and the media seem to revel in it as information concerning the situation becomes vital. Needless to say Covid-19 made its appearance at the end of 2019 in Wuhan the capital of the province of Hubei in China and at the start of 2020 continued to spread in an overpowering and dominant way not only characterized by its speed but also in its capacity of adaptation across all continents of the world. China has been overwhelmed. In France there are no longer yellow vest protests. Italy no longer sings and the art world present in the country has closed its doors. It would seem that America in tears suddenly forgot its superpower. The virus rapidly spread also in Latin America with more than 11 thousand cases in 24 hours in Brazil. All of this to show the very serious impact that Covid-19 has provoked on daily life around the world. In fact on March 11 it qualified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) exceeding the number of 100 infected countries to all areas of the globe.
An interview with Claudina Macuacua, President of the Tribunal for Minors in Mozambique
What are the main causes of the juvenile delinquency phenomenon in Mozambique? The phenomenon of minors in conflict with the law has different roots and reasons. It started with the civil war which ended in 1992 and killed parents who went off to fight leaving children alone and abandoned. In most cases both the mothers and the fathers lost their lives and neither returned to their homes thus children became orphans and remained alone with nobody to look after them. These children began living on the streets trying to earn a life by carrying out little bits of work such as cleaning cars. But in the majority of cases they ended up begging and starving. As a consequence these children grew up carrying out petty crimes and later on they committed bigger offences.