Children Deprived of Liberty in Central and Eastern Europe: Between Legacy and Reform
APADOR-CH is taking part in an international project focused on children deprived of liberty. The project is being implemented in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland and it seeks to analyse the legal framework and the way it is applied in practice with respect to the deprivation of the liberty of children. Through this project, the implementing organizations want to see to what extent the legal framework and the practice of participating countries is in line with applicable international standards. The project also seeks to collate and compare the policies of the participating countries.
As a first step in implementing the project, APADOR-CH carries out a legal analysis of the laws and regulations governing deprivation of liberty of children. The analysis is available in Romanian at:
Legal Analysis in Romanian
As part of this project, APADOR-CH staff carries out monitoring visits in places where children are deprived of liberty: prisons, police arrests, juvenile prisons and re-education centres. During these unannounced visits, APADOR-CH staff looks at detention conditions and to what extent the rights of the children are respected in practice. During these visits, APADOR-CH staff members speak with the children, visit the children’s rooms and meet with the staff of the detention facility. Based on these visits, APADOR-CH writes and publishes a report of the visits. This report is available in the „Reports” section of the APADOR-CH website.
Based on the legal analysis and the monitoring reports, APADOR-CH will write a final study outlining the legislation and practice in regard to children deprived of liberty in Romania. This study will be part of a wider one which will include information from Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary as well as international standards. This study will make it possible to analyse and compare the policies of the 4 participating countries. Based on this study, the project team will develop common recommendations for improving the system by which children are deprived of liberty.
