The Research Problem
Conventional youth justice systems often fail to meet the needs of Indigenous and Pasifika children by imposing Western legal frameworks that disregard culturally appropriate, restorative methods. There is little research on how transformative and customary justice practices can provide more effective, meaningful, and restorative outcomes for youth.
Research Design
This project examines how youth justice systems can be reshaped to better serve Indigenous and Pasifika children through approaches that are culturally grounded, safe, and community-led.
Building on research co-led by the University of York’s Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR), including the WUN Transformative Justice Network and the project ‘Rethinking accountability from the bottom: Setting a research agenda on traditional grassroots justice mechanisms (TGJMs)’, we conduct a comparative study of three models of youth justice: i) Indigenous communities in the Cauca Department, Colombia; ii) Pasifika communities in Queensland, Australia; iii) Indigenous communities in the Nabdam District in Northern Ghana.
Our project adopts a participatory approach, ensuring that Indigenous and Pasifika partner organisations are directly involved throughout the project’s life cycle, from identifying objectives to data collection, analysis, and dissemination.
In Colombia, the project partners with the University of Cauca, as well as ACIN and COTAINDOC, two Indigenous territorial organisations in the Cauca Department that are developing ways to reintegrate Indigenous minors who have been recruited by armed groups into the community. In Queensland, the project involves working with Pasifika communities in the Logan/Gold Coast area to co-develop a youth justice model that acknowledges and strengthens customary dispute resolution practices to better support youth behaviour and outcomes. In Ghana, we collaborate with the organisation Terre des Hommes in mapping practices of community-led youth justice among Indigenous communities in the Nabdam District, where state-led and community-based Indigenous justice systems coexist.
The fieldwork is led by our local partners, who possess the cultural knowledge and trust to gather data using culturally appropriate ethnographic or self-ethnographic methods. The academic team from the University of Cauca, Griffith University, the University of Ghana, and the University of York provide expertise in comparative legal analysis, human rights research, and child justice reform. Data collection also includes expert interviews and focus groups to complement the ethnographic fieldwork.
Project Objectives
Our aim is to produce a comparative research report outlining challenges and best practices, a policy brief to inform national and international youth justice reform, and a joint academic article. Furthermore, we aim to consolidate our international partnership, establishing a strong foundation for future grant applications and long-term collaboration. At the end of the project, we will hold an international workshop at Griffith University funded by WUN Research Development Fund. Finally, the project aims to provide a model for community-engaged research that can be replicated and scaled in other contexts.