| dc.description.abstract | Namibia ’ s moves towards developing a new juvenile justice system for children
in conflict commenced a quarter of a century ago. A country which emerged
from the ravages of apartheid colonisation and a bloody civil war to gain
independence in 1990, Namibia was an early signatory of the UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (1989), and received the advice that the
juvenile justice system reform was required upon submission of the initial
report in 1994. However, bringing the law reform process to a conclusion
has been halting. The first draft of a Child Justice Bill was prepared as early
as 1994. In 1999, the Juvenile Justice Interministerial Committee (IMC)
commissioned a Discussion Document on Juvenile Justice in Namibia. This
did not result in the adoption of a separate juvenile justice statute either.
Nevertheless, some gains were made in developing restorative justice and
diversion programmes, and slowly the involvement of social workers (acting
as probation officers) in the nascent juvenile justice system began to take root.
The IMC coordinated substantial activities pertaining to the transformation
of criminal justice in steering efforts towards compliance with the CRC.
A detailed plan of action was crafted and set in motion. The programme
description towards a structured and holistic juvenile justice system contained
a number of project interventions, namely: Law Reform, Training, Structures,
Service Delivery System, Evaluation and Monitoring and Advocacy and Child
Crime Prevention. | en_US |
