Through our policy reviews, we take a broader look at policy in relation to youth, analyzing not only specific youth policies, but the wider policy dossiers that can affect young peoples’ lives and rights. The key unique feature of the review process is its research methodology, a matrix specifically developed for this purpose, which we introduce here.

While this is not the only review process…

The pilot review process we are currently undertaking is not the only mechanism to undertake assessment of policies pertaining to young people. The Council of Europe has a longstanding process of national reviews supported by international teams. The review of a particular country is initiated by invitation from the government of the country concerned, and is not considered an evaluation per se, but rather as an international perspective on what a given country might consider to improve if and when youth policy is up for review.

Various specialized United Nations agencies and programs formulate review instruments and integrate them into their program planning processes. These are generally conducted on the basis of obtaining information for background descriptions or situation analyses for a country program document, and sometimes as was the case in 2007 for UNFPA, these have been conducted for a region (Europe and Central Asia). The World Bank and the International Labor Organization (ILO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Youth Unit of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs have all undertaken some form of youth policy review in the last decade.

…it has a unique approach

This project differs from its predecessors in several respects. First, it takes a broader look at policy in relation to youth, analyzing not only specific youth policies, but the wider policy dossiers that can affect young peoples’ lives, from housing to education, from health to participation. Second, it attempts to understand the impact of said policies pertaining to young people on the achievement of their human rights, asking the question in which way do said policies support or hinder young people in becoming fully active and engaged citizens. Third, it acknowledges the role of international exchange and good practice in the development of youth policy knowledge, and tries to assess the extent to which international policy initiatives, legislation and declarations have influenced the national policy field – for better or worse. Finally, and not least importantly, this project has taken the rare approach of ‘not waiting to be asked’, in that it does not rely on government invitation to consider the merits and possible gaps in a country’s policy provisions for young people, thereby making a strong statement as regards the necessity of government to be held to account by citizens.

The key unique feature: the matrix

Probably the key unique feature of this review process is that it was rolled out on the basis of a specifically developed research methodology, known as the Matrix. This project’s approach to youth policy research can be broadly understood as one of impact assessment. Its contribution to youth research starts from fairly consolidated values and interests that are already based on strong institutional reflections.

The policy matrix was developed to assist in assessing the impact of public policy on the rights of young people in a variety of country contexts, and was first tested in the present pilot review. Given the pilot nature of the initiative the matrix served as a training framework for understanding the policy review process and was the basis on which the country report structure was designed.

First insights on the usage and usefulness of the matrix

According to the evaluation conducted by the International Editorial Board (IEB), the experience of working with the matrix has been mixed. Country teams were initially a little overwhelmed by its scope, but despite initial negative reactions to the matrix’s complexities and ambiguities, teams were able to adapt and contextualize it for their country research processes. The matrix proved useful in the sense that its purpose was clear, and despite a broad scope, it provided the review team with rather concise questions pertaining to youth policy and comprehensively alluded to a detailed account of the different youth arenas. However, the country teams were confronted with a trade-off: the degree of in-country adaptation decided the extent to which the report would be useful for advocacy within a country versus easy international comparability.

Based on at least four of the country reports taken into consideration by the IEB, the country teams appear to have interpreted the matrix as a kind of check-list that would help them to identify and classify the issues relating to youth policy in the country under review. Accordingly, certain issues proposed by the matrix are missing in the individual reviews.

This can imply that local researchers or their international advisors consciously avoided a topic, but it may also indicate that they considered it irrelevant after serious examination. While the scope and breadth of the matrix provided the teams with a useful framework for guiding the youth policy reviews, it also meant that in-country certain choices about what to include and what not to include had to be made. In some countries at least some of these choices were likely also determined by the expertise and interests of the local researchers rather than the actual situation on the ground.

Further, feedback from the country teams indicate that the matrix was useful for framing the youth policy review process and ensuring that it addressed the many issues affecting young people. It also helped ensure a certain degree of consistency in the structure of the country reports.

Next steps: how will the matrix evolve?

The Matrix is currently being re-developed to take into account the experience of the pilot round of reviews. The revised version will be used to orient the teams that will conduct the second round. In the long run, it is hoped that the rights-based approach it proposes can inform other review processes, and consequently, we will make the re-worked matrix available here on youthpolicy.org.

Further information

Updates about the reviews and various follow-up activities will be provided continuously at http://www.youthpolicy.org/reviews.

For additional information about the youth policy review process and the matrix please contact us at reviews@youthpolicy.org.

The need to increase young people’s access to their rights is beyond controversy. The rationale for a Convention on the Rights of Young People has been increasingly discussed within the youth rights discourse in Europe, questioning the possibility of binding and non-binding instruments to ensure that young people can adequately access their rights. We summarise some arguments in favour and against a dedicated youth rights convention.

The arguments stem from a 2011 Youth Rights Symposium that aimed to highlight the current challenges for young people in accessing their rights, to review the existing framework for ensuring the rights of young people and to critically engage with the recent debates on the need to increase young people’s access to their rights. Read the full report of the symposium.

Overarching questions

Throughout and beyond the Youth Rights Symposium, the question of a youth rights convention has been debated across and beyond Europe, with several overarching questions emerging:

• Which rights are specific to young people?
• How do these rights differ from the rights of children protected by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the rights of adults protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights?
• Which existing youth rights are violated?
• Which necessary youth rights are missing?
• Which added value would a Youth Rights Convention offer? Which risks does it carry?
• How would a Youth Rights Convention relate to the youth rights discourse and movement?

Key arguments for a Youth Rights Convention

Key arguments for a Youth Rights Convention include:

• A convention would champion a rights-based approach to youth policy development and practice.
• Two regional youth rights conventions have already been developed and introduced.
• The challenges young people face are different from children’s and adults’ challenges.
• The existing instruments do not fully protect and promote the rights of young persons.
• Youth empowerment depends on others giving up power by free choice and with good will.
• Debating youth rights will allow young people to drive forward cultural and political change.
• The rights of young people remain unfulfilled across the globe, at least partly.
• Young people are disenfranchised culturally, politically and economically.
• Young people are not given spaces for meaningful political participation.
• The youth rights discourse is a way to negotiate power between generations.
• As long as laws treat young people differently, their rights need to be asserted.

Key arguments against a Youth Rights Convention

Key arguments against a Youth Rights Convention include:

• Research remains inconclusive about the need for an instrument to protect youth rights.
• There is not yet a specific set of rights proposed beyond the general demand for a convention.
• Youth might be marginalised as a group with a subset, and not the full panoply, of human rights.
• As a result of that marginalisation, the convention would undermine youth and human rights.
• A youth rights convention would inevitably overlap with other conventions and frameworks.
• A convention would need to detail different sets of rights for young persons up to, and above 18.
• It remains unclear how a balance between protection, provision and participation can be achieved.
• A youth rights convention will likely reinforce the struggle between children’s and youth policy.
• A youth rights convention would only accelerate the inflation of rights and not change much.
• The demand for a convention is based on needs of young people, not on their violated rights.
• A youth rights convention would contribute little to mobilising young people to use their rights.
• A convention providing young persons with meaningful rights would not be easily ratified.

Read the full report of the Youth Rights Symposium.

Many countries have stated their youth policies, but are they executing them? Do these policies support young people to achieve their rights? In which ways do specific youth policies and broader policies affecting young people interact and with which results for young people? A series of youth policy reviews seeks to answer these and other related questions.

The first step to understanding is knowledge

Commonplace as it may sound, the first step to understanding really is knowledge. Many countries have stated their youth policies, but are they executing them? Do these policies support young people to achieve their rights? In which ways do specific youth policies and broader policies which pertain to young people interact and with which results for young people? What measures might ensure that young people get their fair share of policy attention and resources? To answer these and other related questions, the Open Society Youth Initiative (OSYI), which promotes youth advocacy and participation in all aspects of their communities, started a pilot program to research and analyze public policies affecting youth in 2010. The project’s main aim was to contribute to the elaboration of evidence on which young people and supporting institutions, such as the Open Society Foundations (OSF), can advocate not only for the adoption of sound national and international youth policies, but for their implementation. It further aimed at providing youth civil society and supporting organizations with what they need for holding governments and international institutions accountable to the promises they make to young people.

This first round of policy reviews has come to a close, and the final reports will be published as a series here on www.youthpolicy.org starting in summer 2012. It was conducted in six countries across the globe: Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nepal, Serbia and Uganda. Countries were chosen based on OSF’s National Foundation and Regional Programs’ interest in engaging youth or youth issues in their strategies. In composing the pilot group of countries, OSYI sought to include conflict and post conflict countries, countries impacted by inward and/or outward migration of young people, those that are home to minority and/or marginalized youth communities, countries with a youth budge or an ageing population and those that have some form of stated youth policy. In addition, a fair geographical distribution across countries and regions was sought.

A broader look at policy in relation to youth

Many actors in the public sphere, from governments to youth civil society organizations, to international development agencies to mention just a few, have sought to describe youth policies in specific countries or regions. Several such projects have attempted to distill best practice on national youth policies – how to develop one, how to manage one, etc. Some have stated the case for more attention to be paid to young people in other policy fields, especially development.

This project differs from its predecessors in several respects. First, it takes a broader look at policy in relation to youth, analyzing not only specific youth policies, but the wider policy dossiers that can affect young peoples’ lives, from housing to education, from health to participation. Second, it attempts to understand the impact of said policies pertaining to young people on the achievement of their human rights, asking the question in which way do said policies support or hinder young people in becoming fully active and engaged citizens. Third, it acknowledges the role of international exchange and good practice in the development of youth policy knowledge, and tries to assess the extent to which international policy initiatives, legislation and declarations have influenced the national policy field – for better or worse. Finally, and not least importantly, this project has taken the rare approach of ‘not waiting to be asked’, in that it does not rely on government invitation to consider the merits and possible gaps in a country’s policy provisions for young people, thereby making a strong statement as regards the necessity of government to be held to account by citizens.

The set-up and approach of the pilot review series

The evaluation process for each country involved a mixture of desk research, direct consultation with young people and in-depth field visits to ensure corroboration of results and depth of analysis. Each country review was conducted by a research team made up of experts in the field of youth policy, young researchers, and grassroots activists with specific expertise in special context related factors for the country in question. Each country research team was further supported by an international expert – the so-called International Advisor, who assisted in the collection of relevant international literature, with the analysis and drafting process and in the implementation of the country field visit. The role of National Foundations and local partners supporting the research process was to support the team for the logistical organization of fieldwork and the collection of research materials, as well as for the planning of follow-up and advocacy work in the country and internationally as appropriate. An International Editorial Board (IEB), composed of three high level international experts, ensured ongoing quality control through an evaluation and provided advice on demand to the country review teams.

To ensure methodological rigor and some comparability of results, the project developed a multidimensional evaluation matrix. This was adapted to the specific country context by the country teams during the planning for their research process and was used as a basis for the evaluation of the impact of public policies on the achievement of young peoples’ human rights in each country. Given the pilot nature of the initiative the matrix served as a training framework for understanding the policy review process and was the basis on which the country report structure was designed.

The timeline of the first round of reviews

Project implementation began in February 2011, starting with the recruitment of the country research teams, International Advisors and members of the International Editorial Board. Spring 2011 was dedicated to orientation, structuring work plans; late summer and autumn 2011 was the time for desk research, in-country field visits and preparing early drafts of the country reports. Between February and April 2012, the research teams delivered individual country reports based on available local and foreign language literature, interviews with relevant stakeholders and direct consultations with or surveys of young people.

These country reviews not only shed light on the opportunities and challenges confronting young people, but also on how youth themselves might successfully advocate for the elaboration of reforms and even new policies to remove obstacles hampering the achievement of their human rights. They further consider socio-political barriers young people experience in their transition to adulthood and ways in which society might better value young peoples’ potential contributions to their communities.

A clear account of policy realities

The country reviews present a clear account of the policies pertaining to youth, involvement of youth in policy development and the supportive structures that have been established at national through to local levels. It appears that for most countries youth policy implementation, nonetheless, operates with meager financial resources (which are erratically released in some countries) and weak institutional structures. Civil society organizations and the private sector have become increasingly important players in youth service delivery, working in partnership with both central and local governments. Financial means may well come from development agencies or foundations. This has hampered countries in their progress towards offering sustainable and appropriate services: where the state is dependent on donor funding for policy formulation, the formulated policies seem to have little impact on what is implemented. Political and other contingencies (including institutional factors) drive implementation to a large extent. This is not a very encouraging picture and it is necessary to understand more clearly the constraints and barriers for evidence-based policy development and implementation.

Gaps between policy, research and practice

Most of the countries identified gaps between policy makers, researchers and practitioners. These sectors often worked in isolation with very few institutionalized mechanisms to encourage cooperation and country ownership.

The invisibility of the United Nations

Interestingly, the role of the UN and other multilateral agencies in policy formulation was seldom captured in the country reports. Given that UN and multilateral agencies often offer technical and financial support to governments, and sometimes to civil society groups, for policy formulation it is interesting that their role was invisible in the policy review process especially with regard to capacity building or institutional strengthening.

Vulnerable and marginalized youth groups remain sidelined

Almost all the country reports also emphasized the fact that vulnerable and marginalized youth groups, although identified in the policies as requiring special support, continued to be sidelined. Certain youth groups were marginalized due to a range of cultural and political issues as well such as language, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation. Countries do not seem to have found effective means of integrating all youth groups into even existing programs.

In terms of overall findings education, training, employment, access to the labor market, health and youth civic involvement were key issues that drew attention in all the country reports. Certainly, these issues having transpired across countries call for coherent involvement of all stakeholders in the youth field and cross-sectoral collaboration through creation of linkages within other relevant national policy frameworks.

From first findings to full reports: next steps

All six reports will be published as a series in electronic format, in PDF for download and in print versions appearing from summer 2012 onwards, appearing here on www.youthpolicy.org. Some findings from the reports, the main facts and figures, shall also be integrated into the relevant country fact sheets on youthpolicy.org. A series of in-country and international dissemination and advocacy events are also currently in preparation.

Several of the OSF National Foundations involved are planning on translating the reports, which have been drafted in English for international consumption, into local languages. Ultimately, the aim is to get young people advocating on their own behalves using the results outlined in the reports, so OSYI is planning a series of training activities for evidence-based policy advocacy for 2013. Finally, a second round of policy reviews is under preparation and will kick off in the 2nd half of 2012.

Further information

More information about this project and its various follow-up activities will be provided continuously at http://www.youthpolicy.org/reviews.

For enquiries concerning Round 2 of the Policy Reviews contact us at reviews@youthpolicy.org.

Photo credit: Laura Kel | youthmedia.eu

The Fund has developed other strategies to meet the needs of the affected communities, “[o]perating under its General Assistance rather than Reparations mandate it has been on the ground in eastern DRC and northernUgandasince 2008 offering vocational training, trauma counselling, reconciliation workshops and reconstructive surgery to over 80,000 victims.”

One issue is the ongoing ethnic divide, and the fact that Lubanga was only convicted of one of his many purported crimes, recruiting Hema children to be soldiers. Mark Drumbl, an expert on child soldiers and the law, writes, “I think the ICC’s Registry is wise to worry about the ethnic dimension to the reparations, because under the child soldiering charges the Hema are the victims, though Hema forces inflicted crimes against humanity against the Lendu and others. This meshes with a broader sense that convicting Lubanga solely on child soldiering is akin to convicting Al Capone on tax evasion, that is, a huge array of victimization, particularly sexual torture, remains unjudicialized.

Drumbl supports collective reparations and efforts to reintegrate the former child soldiers into their communities, particularly in light of past conflicts where tensions arose when victims of the child soldiers did not themselves receive reparations.

Most mega-events undermine their own honorable ambitions and often youth-centred visions by encapsulating and policing the events – and by putting monetary concerns and financial interests over (young) people’s rights. But what if were to reimagine such events from scratch? What could be different, what should be different? At the “Sport Mega-Events and the Crisis of Youth Exclusion” conference in London, a brainstorming brought out some first ideas.

In no particular order, these were some of the ideas mentioned in the brainstorming.

• remembering and re-negotiating the original ambition of mega-events such as the Olympic Games, away from monetizing publicity events;
• developing a bills of rights for mega-events that covers in particular the rights of marginalized and disadvantaged people;
• devising a mega-event index that allows to capture to which extent the bills of rights is adhered to by any large event;
• creating an international body that monitors mega-events and their compliance with rights and standards and adherence of best practices;
• forbidding security measures to infringe on the civil rights of people, whether permanently or for a limited period of time;
• involving youth prior to making a bid through obligatory and meaningful conversations – not consultations;
• establishing an autonomous youth platform that can gather, accumulate and defend the rights and interests of young people;
• adjusting the scale and approach of events, away from mega-events based on nation states towards transnational and cosmopolitan events;
• exposing the full legal terms of agreements between hosts and organisers, including all financial arrangements;
• disallowing private ownership of new infrastructure, which is often paid for with public money, making sure that stadiums and venues, houses and buildings are publicly owned;
• clarifying which benefits the local hosting communities receive, away from promises and suggestions towards binding agreements and guarantees;
• providing access exclusively to countries that do not violate human rights and that do not have any nuclear bombs;
• choosing participants and contestants not only by their excellence in sport but also by their community engagement;
• retrieving and reviving the notion and idea of amateur sports, honoring the aspirations of millions doing sport for the love of the game;
• accommodating guests in families and local communities rather than in villages that are especially built and then oftentimes forgotten;
• moving the event out and away from stadiums and into real life on streets and in neighbourhoods.

Read more about the conference here.

Jacqueline Kennelly from Carleton University in Ottawa examined the experiences of homeless and street-involved young people with policing and surveillance practices instituted within the city of Vancouver in preparation for the 2010 Olympic Games. She traced encounters with the security apparatus before and during the Games and accounted for the experiences of young people through a theoretical frame that understands security as a ‘spectacle’ – related to the spectacle of the Olympics themselves.

The Dominion, a monthly paper devoted to accurate, critical coverage that is published by a network of independent journalists in Canada, has more details on the experience of young people in Vancouver during the Games:

“Young people who watch the Olympics are expected to benefit from the Games, according to sociologist J.J. MacAloon in This Great Symbol: Pierre de Coubertin and the Origins of the Modern Olympic Games. MacAloon says youth ought to relate to the athletes, who are themselves young adults, and be inspired by the example of these fine role models. Go to any Olympic host city organizing committee’s website, and you will encounter special games, educational activities, and interactive content geared directly at youth. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has recently taken its focus on youth a step further with the introduction of the Youth Olympics.”

What happened, however, in Vancouver was constant policing of the city to keep homeless and street-involved youth out of the parts of town likely to be traversed by tourists or business people. Homeless youth were moved from downtown tourist streets to areas where they would be ‘out of sight.’ Absurdly and ironically, Vancouver’s Downtown East Side—an area notorious for open drug use, sex trade work and poverty—was the only neighbourhood these young people felt was free from police harassment in the year leading up to the Olympics.

“They don’t care if you’re down there. They’ll come up to me while I’ve been using drugs and they’re like, we don’t care that you’re using. Just stay out of sight,” said Jennifer, a formerly homeless woman who continues to attend the youth drop-ins at her local homeless shelter.

Street youth who were visibly homeless – symbolically marked through dirty or ripped clothing, tattoos, mohawks, carrying large backpacks or leading large dogs on a leash – were treated by the police as if they were ‘out of place’ when found in the city’s affluent West side or in the shopping district of the city’s downtown, Jacqueline Kennelly reports in her 2011 paper Sanitizing public space in Olympic host cities: the spatial experiences of marginalized youth in 2010 Vancouver and 2012 London.

The Dominion article draws attention to the hypocrisy of the policing approach in Vancouver:

“Homeless and street-involved youth also noticed police treated other young people differently during the Games, particularly if they were obviously Olympic revellers. “If you’re wearing Canada gear, you can be as hammered as you want and the cops won’t bother you, as long as you’re going, ‘Go, Canada!’” said Jason, a young man currently housed in Vancouver’s east side. This injustice rankled Jason and other youth, particularly given that they experience regular police harassment for relatively minor infringements.”

Kennelly suggests that the experiences of marginalized youth in London prior to and during the Games may well be congruent with those of disadvantaged young people observed and documented in Vancouver. “Even two years before the opening ceremonies are scheduled to begin,” she wrote in July 2010, “young people living in transitional housing in East London were encountering the revised spatial practices that also accompanied the Vancouver Olympics, carried out through intensified policing and security regimes.” The experiences documented at the “Sport Mega-Events and the Crisis of Youth Exclusion” Conference in April 2012 seem to confirm her observations and conclusions, among them this:

“As global cities attempt to capitalize on ‘prestige projects’ (Newman, 2007) such as the Olympic Games, governments often make use of the police as agents of the spatial reorganization that permits the city to ‘look its best’ when the ‘world is watching’ (McCann, 2009). This generally carries negative implications for the city’s marginalized inhabitants, including homeless and street-involved young people. These are not the stories of youthful heroism and athletic endeavour on which the IOC markets its brand; nonetheless, they are the recipients of Olympic legacies within the cities they call home.”

(Source: ‘Sanitizing public space in Olympic host cities: the spatial experiences of marginalized youth in 2010 Vancouver and 2012 London’, in Sociology October 2011 Vol. 45 N° 5 Pages 765-781)

Jacqueline Kennelly is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She is the co-author (with Jo-Anne Dillabough) of Lost Youth in the Global City: Class, Culture, and the Urban Imaginary (Routledge, 2010), and the author of Citizen Youth: Culture, Activism, and Agency in a Neoliberal Era (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2011). Jacqueline co-authored (with Paul Watt, Department of GEDS, Birkbeck) a paper – ‘Sanitizing public space in Olympic host cities: the spatial experiences of marginalized youth in 2010 Vancouver and 2012 London’ – in a special issue of Sociology on the London 2012 Olympics. Her research interests include youth cultures, social exclusion and inclusion, citizenship, gentrification studies, and social movements. Her current research project is a cross-national study of the impacts of the Vancouver (2010) and London (2012) Olympic Games on low-income youth.

At the turn of the last century, the modern Olympic and FIFA movements were launched in the context of declining empires, global economic crises, and ceaseless wars. Their explicit aim was to produce a new kind of peaceful world order. These movements were founded on the theory that by providing healthful, demilitarized spaces where the youth of the world could realize their potential, they would come to embody a new kind of non-nationalistic, peaceful breed of humanity.

Yet the fact we have seen in changes recent decades to the treatment of young people in public spaces, particularly around such international sporting events, raises questions about the implementation of this humanitarian vision. In western democracies young people from certain social, economic and ethnic backgrounds have been widely criminalized and deemed undesirable. Recent sports mega events around the world have used repressive and militarized policing to exclude local young people and present the world’s tourists and media with a rose-tinted view of the host communities – snubbing those who should stand to benefit most from such an event in their city.

How can public policy makers, youth organizations and event organizers ensure that the arrival of these sports mega-events, which are almost universally heralded as economic and social opportunities for their host communities, do not isolate, exclude and target local underprivileged youth. Issues around how young people use public space and the provisions that governments, police and communities make for them to do so are longstanding and important questions which become even more crucial when the World Cup or Olympics comes to town.

The conference “Sport Mega-Events and the Crisis of Youth Exclusion”, hosted by Goldsmiths University and the Open Society Foundations, brings together youth activists, policy innovators and academic specialists to explore these issues. By looking back to the recent experiences of World Cup and Olympic hosts South Africa, Germany and Beijing, and looking forward to upcoming sports mega-events in London and Rio de Janeiro, we hope to generate new proposals for the promotion of young people’s interests in these giant international spectacles. We will report from the conference on Twitter, Facebook and youthpolicy.org. More conference details are available at http://youthandsport.idebate.org/.

This means that they are going to look at the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of agreements. This will also include how to tackle new and emerging challenges.

The event will mark the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit), in Rio de Janeiro, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development  in Johannesburg. It is seen as a conference at the highest possible level, including Heads of State and Government or other representatives. We want the Conference to result in a focused political document.

So, how can you(th) make this happen? Put pressure on your government. Get involved! Mobilise your friends and make sure that your government knows that this matters to you.

Rio+twenties is a youth-led, completely volunteer-based organization. It strives to create a platform for active youth participation in what could become one of the most important international events in years, the UN Conference for Sustainable Development (aka Rio + 20).

Watch the video below, An Introduction to Rio+20 for children and youth.

Rio+20: an introduction for children and youth from Rio+twenties on Vimeo.

Most of the victims were detained for throwing rocks and participating in protests against the Turkish government. Abuse appears to be greater in areas were ethnic Turks run the juvenile facilities. In 2011 the government ended the practice of equally applying anti – terrorism laws to children and adults. Children also were no longer placed in adult facilities.

Following the accusations and the public protests that followed the Pozanti center has been closed, and the children transferred to an Ankaraprison. The situation, as pointed out in a recent post by Denise Tomasini-Joshi and Douglas Keillor on the Open Society blog page, points out the precarious position of children in pretrial confinement.

From Tanzania to the United States to Denmark concerns about the pretrial detention of juveniles are being raised. A 2010 report from Defence of Children International thoroughly examines the realities of the issue, including hidden costs and strategies for change.

Let's get radical - Hungary's right-wing youth. Photo: Swaan van Iterson.

Until last year, the international media paid little attention to Hungary. This changed when the nationalist and conservative Fidesz party, under the leadership of Viktor Orbán, won a two-thirds majority in the 2010 elections, thereby gaining the power to push through radical changes.

Orbán moved quickly to nationalise private pension funds. In addition, he pushed through a controversial media law, which stipulates that a government-appointed media authority should monitor whether journalists provide “moral” and “objective” reporting.

In July 2011, his government passed a new church law, which officially recognises only 14 religions, and hence strips the others of the right to receive state subsidies. The Institute on Religion and Public Policy (IRPP) called the legislation the “worst religion law in Europe.”

But Orbán and his party are not finished yet. His latest idea is to allow secondary school children to study “basic military science” starting in the next academic year.

Yet Fidesz is not the only party that is making news in Hungary. Further to the right on the political spectrum, the radical Jobbik party—which won 16.7% of the vote in the 2010 elections to become the third largest party in Hungary—is drawing significant attention. The Movement for a Better Hungary’s (A Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom) Manifesto is mainly based on, among other things, nationalism and the combating of so-called “gypsy criminality” (cigánybűnözés). Many believe that the party was closely linked to the Magyar Gárda (the Hungarian Guard that is now dissolved, but still active under different names), which was established to protect the population against this “gypsy crime.”

Jobbik’s main support base is not only found in the ranks of the poor and poorly educated workers in the northeast of the country, but increasingly amongst the urban young. In early 2010, some 15% of under-25s said they would vote for Jobbik – the party was particularly popular among university students specialising in the humanities or history.

This raises the question of why Jobbik would be attractive to more highly educated students in Budapest. Most narratives paint a picture of a faceless crowd of “societal losers” who vote for the radical right. Can the same terminology be used to describe these students? I travelled to Budapest to find out. During a month of extensively interviewing students and hearing their stories, while trying not to judge and to remain objective, I learned that radical right voters can be far from being the indistinguishable mass of victims they are often taken to be.

Jews and gypsies

A Jobbik student attends class with pen and bracelet in the colours of the Hungarian flag. Photo: Swaan van Iterson.

Farkas Gergely (25), a recent graduate in economics and sociology, is a Jobbik member and one of the youngest members of parliament. According to Gergely, the lack of prospects many students face leads them to vote for his party: “Many students in Hungary cannot find work once they graduate… For 20 years, no party stood up for young people and so they looked for something new. We have filled that gap.”

A lot of the students I have spoken to indicate that having a university degree in Hungary is no guarantee for a secure future. According to Marcell, a 25-year-old public administration student, the bad socio-economic situation is a result of, amongst other things, foreign interference: “Multinationals, transnational companies and foreign banks have come to the country in droves since 1989. They were able to operate here without paying any taxes while local firms had to pick up the tab – they got no special perks,” he says. “The result is that the multinationals have devoured our economy. They became the rulers of our homeland. Every Hungarian government over the past 20 years has been their unquestioning servant.”

Szuszanna (21), a medical student in Budapest, believes that it is mainly Jewish enterprises that have received this beneficial treatment: “We’re not happy with the Israeli companies which buy up everything here – they ruin everything. They take a lot of money out of the country and invest very little,” she argues.

In Szuszanna’s view, the trouble is that if you want to do something about the situation, you’re immediately labelled as an anti-Semite. According to her, the same problem arises around the “gypsy question.” The Jobbik party introduced the term “gypsy criminality” into Hungary’s political discourse, which finally made it, in Szuszanna’s view, possible to talk about the situation – something that is very urgent, she believes: “During communist times, everybody was obliged to work, but that changed with the advent of capitalism,” Szuszanna explains. “Now that you can get benefits, a lot of gypsies don’t work anymore. They spend their benefits on alcohol and cigarettes and when this runs out, they often steal.”

Radical change

The Turul bird is the national symbol of Hungary. Jobbik voters often wear it on T-shirts, necklaces, bracelets and other accessories. Photo: Swaan van Iterson.

Student supporters of Jobbik greet one another by saying “Szebb Jövőt”, meaning “A better future”. They would like to see change not only in the socio-economic conditions but also in the political situation. János (26), who studies computer science, believes that students vote for Jobbik because they want radical change. According to him, Hungary never underwent a change of regime (rendszerváltás). He thinks that many communists continue to be in power under the guise of socialism and that communism actually never went away in Hungary. Moreover, like János, a lot of students view the socialists as being corrupt.

For a lot of the students, 2006 was the time they decided to join the Jobbik party. That year, an audio recording surfaced from a closed-door meeting, featuring the then socialist president Ferenc Gyurcsány. In the recording, Gyurcsány admitted that “we have been lying for the last one and a half to two years” about the economic situation in Hungary. The leak led to public outrage and mass demonstrations, including the occupation of the state television building by football hooligans and radical-right students.

Many of the Jobbik supporters believe that socialist “indoctrination” does not only occur in the political sphere, but also in the education system. Jószef, a PhD student in political science who is researching euroscepticism, would like to build an academic career but, in his view, it is very difficult to earn money as an independent political scientist in Hungary: “You need to have a political colour, otherwise you’ll get nowhere in this field,” he says. “Personally I have had no problems but I have heard others say that it is difficult to get a good position if you’re not a socialist.”

And it’s not just academia. In Katalin’s opinion the media is also dominated by “liberal leftists” (referring to the socialists). The “simplistic and oversexualised” American programming on television annoys her: “The Hungarian media is extremely prejudiced and, above all, extremely liberal,” she complains. “People watch MTV, use drugs, find it normal to be gay and encourage others to become so too. That’s just ridiculous.”

The “bias” of the Hungarian media does not stop Jobbik from reaching the public, János stresses. He says that the party bypasses the mainstream media by being very active on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Moreover, this helps the party to connect better with young people.

Eszter, a master’s student in public administration, thinks that Jobbik is a party for the young generation in a country where there is an intergenerational divide in politics: “Older people lived through communism and miss the security and stability of those times. In those days, there was still work for everyone. This means that older people vote more frequently for the socialists. Young people don’t have the same experiences and sympathies.”

Hungary’s Young Turks?

Péter is a university lecturer at both ELTE and Corvinus University. He says that students who vote for Jobbik regularly voice their political views in their essays and assignments. According to him, history students in particular are drawn to the party – a phenomenon that does not surprise him in the least: “Hungarians have a history of lost wars and lost independence. This gives you a reason to become nationalistic. Young people are convinced that, given all they’ve lost, Hungarians can only count on themselves.”

Many of the students I spoke to integrate their political views not only into their studies but also their plans for the future. Ákos (21) describes knowledge as his “weapon” with which he can build his future and change the world. Towards that end, he is studying history and Turkish. He believes that Hungarians must have more control over their country, and the only way to achieve this is to become more independent from the West.

Surprisingly, for all those right-wing Europeans who oppose Turkish membership of the EU because of the supposed civilisational differences, Ákos wishes to strengthen ties between Hungary and Turkey, as he believes the two countries share a common history: “Most people believe that the Hungarians are descendants of the Finno-Ugric tribes, but this is untrue. The Turks and Hungarians are brothers and there is a lot of research which shows that Hungarians are related to tribes in Kazakhstan.”

For other students, Jobbik is more a part of their daily reality than their future dreams. Barnabás (20), also a history student, wears black jeans and a leather jacket bearing Hungarian nationalist iconography, as well as an armband in the colours of the Hungarian flag. His interest in the Hungarista subculture began when he turned 16 and started listening to nationalist rock bands like Kárpátia and Romantikus Erőszak, whose songs include 100% Magyar (100% Hungarian) and Lesz még Erdély (Transylvania will be ours).

“It is very, very important for me to be part of the Jobbik movement. It is an integral part of my Hungarian identity,” Barnabás admits. “You really get the feeling that you belong to a group. Jobbik helps people who feel out of place but have a strong bond with Hungary to find a community. Before I joined Jobbik, I often felt alone, like I didn’t belong anywhere.”

According to Ákos, this sense of loneliness is common among young Hungarians who have few extracurricular activities to engage in or groups to join. For him, Jobbik is almost more like a family than a party: “At Jobbik, you feel that you’re at home. You are surrounded by people who think just like you and who want to reach the same goals.” He ended our conversation with the following words: “We’re there for each other. We fight for each other. Also for you, a better future!”

The students I talked to are trying to change their future through the Jobbik party. The way they actively engage their political ideas in their daily activities, studies and career plans, and use modern utilities like social media, makes it impossible to label them as ‘losers of the modern world’ or the modernisation process. But despite the solidarity and belonging that Jobbik inspires in its young members, the question is whether the radical right path they are treading is the way to achieve their dreams of independence, pride and well-being.

Other versions of this article were published on www.united-academics.org and www.chronikler.com.