Child rights and youth participation in peace dialogues in Colombia

This project supports activities that promote the inclusion of the agenda of children in negotiations and peace dialogues with armed groups. It also promotes early commitments to implementing concrete actions to put an end to all grave violations against children in Colombia. It supports the design and establishment of the legal mechanism for the demobilization and reintegration of adolescents and young people from criminal groups. Project activities include : (1) providing training and gender and ethnic-sensitive technical assistance to the country task force on monitoring and reporting in ten conflict-affected departments of Colombia; (2) improving UNICEF'S monitoring and reporting mechanism's information management system; (3) providing technical support and empowering peace negotiation actors to promote child rights provisions in peace negotiations; (4) promoting children and armed conflict agenda through media and public dialogue; (5) facilitating the participation of adolescents and young people used by armed groups at the peace negotiations and including their agenda in negotiations with the Government of Colombia; (6) supporting initiatives by adolescents and at-risk-youth that focus on reducing violence in their communities and promote the participation of women and girls in equal decision-making within the peace and security agenda; and (7) establishing gender and ethnic-sensitive legal mechanisms for the demobilization and reintegration of adolescents and young people from criminal groups into communities in cooperation with the national and local governments.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) inclusion of the agenda of children and armed conflict in peace dialogues and negotiations with armed groups particularly related to recruitment use and sexual violence; and (2) increased integration of girl and boy adolescents’ and youth’s input into the development of reintegration and care models for disengaged youth.