Reading Time: 3 minutes Children and young people have the right to be involved in decisions that affect them. This is a basic human right, underlined by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It is thus morally the right thing to do. But, further, we also have ever increasing evidence that it leads to better decision-making and better outcomes for children and young people, whether that is in family law when contact between parents and children are contested or in designing policy on domestic abuse.

Reading Time: 2 minutes In all corners of the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected young people’s education, employment, mental health and disposable income, particularly for those young people previously disadvantaged by complex inequalities and marginalisation. In low- and middle-income countries like Colombia, the population has experienced the pandemic’s impacts even more strongly and the crisis has aggravated existing socio-economic inequalities.