Justice for Children Officer

For 75 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.
UNICEF Serbia’s Private Sector Plan (PSP) 2021 and 2022 is guided by the UNICEF Strate-gic Plan 2018-2021 and UNICEF Serbia's Country Programme Document’s goal to contribute to national efforts to progressively fulfil the rights of all children in Serbia, especially the most disadvantaged and excluded, and enable them to develop to their full potential in an inclusive and protective society respectful of their voice.
The Country Programme for Serbia will focus on: (a) Young Child Health and Wellbeing; (b) Quality and Inclusive Pre-University Education including Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC); (c) Child Protection; (d) Young People and (e) Social Policy, Public Financing and Child Rights Monitoring.
Unlocking the untapped transformative potential of the private sector (within the Business for Results framework) is defined as one of the seven core change strategies that will be applied at the national and sub-national levels to address barriers to child rights.

Each year in Serbia thousands of children find themselves in contact with the justice system in a range of different ways, be it in conflict with law, as victims or witnesses of crime, or in need of free legal aid. When faced with the justice system, children are often faced with processes which they cannot understand, which are often not supportive and consequently may result in additional negative consequences on a child’s development. Despite important legislative and policy advances multiple challenges remain including related to the consistent application of diversionary measures, the use of alternative sanctions, the reintegration of children in conflict with the law, and the effective protection of child victims and witnesses in criminal proceedings. In addition, free legal aid for children is uneven in quality and availability, while the regulatory framework and institutional capacities require further reinforcement to coordinate, monitor, and advance the justice for children agenda.

As access to justice is both a fundamental human right and an essential prerequisite for the enjoyment and protection of other human rights UNICEF with partners works on promotion of effective and equitable access to justice for children in contact with the law, with focus on creation of a child-friendly justice system that works in the best interests of the child, where children are protected and participate meaningfully in the processes where decisions about them are made.

Together with Ministry of Justice as the lead institutional counterpart, and Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, and with support from European Union Delegation in Serbia, UNICEF has initiated a three year project to address these remaining challenges contribute to ensuring that all children in Serbia have equitable access to a child-friendly justice system.

The project contributes directly to Sustainable Development Goal 16 on just, peaceful and inclusive societies and in particular target 16.3 (access to justice for all) and target 16.2 (ending violence against children). At the national level, the project supports Serbia’s EU accession process under Chapter 23 and is aligned with key frameworks by such as the National Strategy for the Realization of the Rights of Victims and Witnesses of Criminal Offenses 2020-2025 (NSRRVWCO), the Judicial Development Strategy 2020–2025, and the Strategy on prevention and protection from discrimination 2022-2030.

The project has four expected outcomes:
1. Improved performance of the courts/prosecutors’ offices and service providers in implementing diversionary measures, alternative sanctions and reintegration of children in conflict with the law.
2. Improved performance of the courts/prosecutors’ offices and service providers in relation to the rights of child victims and witnesses in criminal proceedings, as stipulated by the Juvenile Justice Law.
3. Strengthened system capacities for enabling free legal aid providers from local self-governments to provide child friendly legal aid for children.
4. Strengthened institutional capacities of Ministry of Justice to lead, coordinate, monitor and advance the justice for children’s agenda in line with international standards.

Justice for Children Officer will support UNICEF’s justice program, and ensuring quality, compliance, and timely delivery of complex reforms in justice for children, focusing mostly on managing the EU IPA Justice project. The role requires sector expertise to support implementation of activities which include regulatory development, capacity building, and institutional strengthening of MoJ and partners.

Task 1: Program/Project Planning and Implementation
• Planning, coordination and implementation of justice for children activities in line with approved work plans, budgets and results frameworks.
• Management of project partnerships, consultants and service providers, including preparation of Terms of Reference, monitoring deliverables and ensuring quality, monitoring budget utilization.
• Organisation of trainings, workshops, consultations, advocacy events and capacity-building activities.
• Identification of implementation challenges and risks and propose corrective actions.
• Liaising with expert consultants to ensure quality control and technical oversight of project components for alignment with CRC, EU and other international standards.

Task 2: Manage multi-stakeholder engagement with MoJ, MoLEVSA, Judicial Academy, CSOs
• Liaising with government counterparts, including ministries, judiciary, prosecution offices, police, social welfare institutions, Academia.
• Coordination with UN agencies, international organizations, civil society organizations and development partners active in justice and child protection.
• Promoting multidisciplinary and child-centered approaches across sectors.

Task 3: Monitoring, Reporting and Knowledge Management
• Monitoring of program progress against indicators and targets, in line with UNICEF’s and donor reporting requirements.
• Preparation of donor and internal reports, briefing notes and presentations.
• Contribute to other internal and external documents related to justice for children.
• Document lessons learned and good practices to inform program improvement and knowledge sharing.