Ex-senator Thompson-Ahye to attend Madrid conference on child justice

Former independent senator and child rights advocate Hazel Thompson-Ahye will be at the World Congress on Justice With Children in Madrid, Spain from June 2-4.

The theme of the congress is, preventing and responding to violence against children in child justice: pathways to child-centred systems.

Having actively participated in previous congresses on Justice with Children in Geneva (2015), Paris (2018) and the online one out of Mexico in 2021, Thompson-Ahye was invited by the co-ordinator Cedric Foussard, international expert on child justice, to sit on the conference scientific committee.

The objectives of the world congress are:

* Advocate for systemic change through increased and improved knowledge and practices in preventing violence against children in the administration of justice.

* Develop and measure effective strategies to prevent violence against children in the administration of justice; and

* Enhance child systemic participation within the child justice system.

Thompson- Ahye, who was contracted by the US National Center for State Courts to conduct training of child justice personnel throughout the Caribbean region, and by UNICEF to conduct training in Guyana and Belize, has conducted workshops locally.

She is saddened by the fact that TT has been repeatedly chastised by the Privy Council and made to pay millions to child victims for breach of child rights in TT's justice system. She is encouraging child justice personnel and people working with children in institutions to take advantage of the free online segments of the world congress.

Thompson-Ahye, who was deemed poet laureate of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association in Malta last month, and at conferences of the International Institute for Restorative Practices, and the International Society of Family Law, of which she is a vice-president, has been asked to repeat in Madrid, a poem she read at the closing ceremony of the world congress at UNESCO headquarters in Paris back in 2018.