On 10-11 April, the second expert meeting for the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty took place in Vienna, with some fifty leading child rights and child welfare experts participating, including COPE and QUNO representatives. After a year of challenges with respect to funding and timeframe, the Study, launched in 2016 and led by independent expert Professor Manfred Nowak, is going forward and set to be completed by June 2019. Children deprived of liberty have remained largely invisible— the Global Study can provide an impetus for global reform. The Study’s aim is to gain a better understanding of the scale and conditions of children deprived of liberty globally, including children co-residing with a parent in prison, with data collection lying at its core. States have been urged to complete the questionnaire, ideally by 26 June 2018, but government responses are lagging and the Study needs your help.
In addition to urging your government to fill in the questionnaire, you can help the Global Study research teams by sending : a) Links to research and reports on the issue of children co-residing with imprisoned parents; b) Data on the numbers of children living in prison with a parent; c) Case studies covering either the impact on children or good practices. Please say briefly what the case study would be about. The Research group will follow up to work with you on providing the details. d) Relevant laws and policies: On how decisions are made about children living in prison with a parent, what age children can stay in prison until and who makes these decisions. e) Examples of good practices: Covering either to mitigate the impact of children living in prison or non-custodial measures that mean that the parent and the child do not go into prison. Input can be sent in English, Spanish, French, German or Italian. If you have information in other languages that you think would be particularly relevant please send a brief description in one of these five languages. Please send this information to COPE (contact@networkcope.eu) who will compile it so it can be shared with the research leads on behalf of the NGO Focal Points for the Research Group for this chapter, Quaker United Nations Office and COPE.