This side event celebrates the 20 th anniversary of the signing of the UNTOC and builds on that legacy by showcasing how education, particularly through lifelong learning opportunities, can empower youth and adults to address transnational organized crime.
Examples of good practices for the conceptualization, design and dissemination of educational tools on transnational organized crime at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels will be presented, igniting fruitful discussions and exchanges of views on the importance of quality education to promote and uphold the rule of law, with a particular focus on organized crime.
UNODC's Judicial Integrity Team, together with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judge and Lawyers, will contextualize the problem of judicial corruption arising from organized crime and illustrate its effects on the independence, integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. The panel will highlight the applicable international legal frameworks as well as good practices for preventing and combating corruption linked to organized crime. It will also promote specific resources of the Global Judicial Integrity Network available to improve training on judicial integrity principles and provide updates on other relevant work being carried out by the Special Rapporteur.
This high-level side event aims to underline the importance of prevention programmes for vulnerable youth as part of comprehensive strategies to counter gang violence and organised crime. Panellists will share experiences from Latin America on the use of innovative approaches, such as through sport, to reach young people at risk of victimization and involvement in crime. Specifically, and building on the work of UNODC, the event will highlight the use of sport as a tool to build youth and community resilience by strengthening key personal and social life skills, and by generating safe public spaces that facilitate positive youth engagement in marginalised communities.
Sport can be a powerful tool to engage youth and promote positive values, building resilience to violence, crime and substance use. With this in mind, UNODC's 'Line Up Live Up' initiative has been rolled across the world in recent years, offering a sports-based, life skills training curriculum designed to help young people in vulnerable settings.
Most recently, Line Up Live Up, part of the Youth Crime Prevention through Sport initiative under the Doha Declaration Global Programme, partnered with UNESCO and the Ministry of Public Health of Lebanon to organize a four-day Training of Trainers in Beirut.
One of the many impacts of containment measures, including confinement, is the limitation of young people's participation in public life and sports events. Indeed, these were often part of their pre-pandemic daily routine and as has been observed, society's most vulnerable are often those most affected by the dramatic decrease in participation opportunities.
To counter this in Kyrgyzstan, UNODC and the Ministry of Education and Science recently partnered to provide children and youth across the country with opportunities for positive engagement and to foster physical activity and social inclusion during COVID-19.
One such opportunity was the Line Up Live Up online challenge, a video competition organized during the month of July.
