The Ibero-American Alliance for Access to Justice has recently published the report “A child-centred approach to justice: Ibero-American Insights for a Regional Agenda”, focused on the subject of children’s access to justice in the region. The report looks to contribute to advancement towards a child-centred Ibero-American justice agenda.
The report is the result of an investigation carried out between 2024 and 2025, during which researchers carried out structured interviews with 26 key informants from different sectors in 15 countries in the region, as well as a literature review of child focused justice initiatives, justice systems, policy frameworks, conventions, good practices, statistics on violence and institutionalisation, and other related reports and documents.
The report explains the main obstacles that complicate access to justice for the region’s children, which include child poverty, structural violence, forced migration, and the lack of adapted spaces, specialist justice operators in child centred justice, and data that permits a better understanding of the current situation. The report also highlights different groups of children in vulnerable situations that require special attention, as they face more obstacles in their interaction with the justice system. These include the situations of girls, as well as indigenous, migrant, disabled and LGBTQI+ children, and children in contact with the criminal justice system.
The report proposes a structural transformation of justice systems, based on six fundamental principles:
- Institutional redesign from a child-centred perspective;
- Prevention of violence and victimisation;
- Child empowerment;
- Strengthening of procedural safeguards and resources;
- Intersectional coordination;
- Use of data and evidence for decision-making.
As well as this, the report recognises diverse child centred justice initiatives that are being implemented in different countries, such as:
- Juvenile restorative justice models in Uruguay and Chile.
- Child-friendly interview rooms in Argentina, Spain, and Colombia.
- Adolescent councils that helped design justice policies in Mexico and Paraguay.
- Regulatory frameworks and comprehensive protection laws in Peru and Portugal.
The report also presents the the Ibero-American Common Rules on Restorative Juvenile Criminal Justice, an instrument of soft law that is a product of regulatory and operative agreements of technical and political actors in the region, which offers an inclusive and child-centred model of Restorative Juvenile Penal Justice.