In the last five years the Dutch children’s ombudsman has developed into a full-fledged supervisory body monitoring compliance with children’s rights in the Netherlands. A fuller engagement with its statutory tasks, greater involvement of children and strengthening the autonomous position of the children’s…

From 9-12 April 2018, the Department of Child and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies have organised in cooperation with the Asia-Europe Foundation a training programme on Human Rights and Children.

Children are often able to decide for themselves whether they want to take part in medical research. In order to be able to make an informed decision, they need clear information. PhD candidate Ronella Grootens set a good example and created a cartoon story. PhD defence 6 December.

This Justice for Children Call to Action offers a new starting point to place children at the heart of an emerging global movement for justice. It strives to ensure that, in collective efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, no child is left behind.

At the start of 2020, the book ‘Safeguarding Children’s Rights in Immigration Law’ was published by Intersentia.

Adva Eichengreen starts a fellowship focusing on enhancing social participation of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children. Eichengreen has been offered a postdoc position at Leiden University as part of the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie “LEaDing Fellows” Project within the collaboration of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus…

A Dutch-language video shows children their new life during the corona crisis and gives them some guidelines to help them feel less worried. The short animated video was made by two German researchers with whom child psychologists Anke Klein and Annelieke Hagen are working. ‘With our translation, this…

‘Children do not see color’ is an illusion, say experts. Professor of the interdisciplinary tudy of societal challenges, Judi Mesman, was interviewed by the Dutch news platform NU.nl to share her expertise on the subject of speaking to children about racism and discrimination. Prof. Mesman's main research…

The description of a painting directly affects how children look at that artwork. This was discovered by psychologist Francesco Walker in the Rijksmuseum. Another finding presented in his article in Nature - Scientific Reports is that giving children information intended for adults has the same effect…

48 student teams from all over the world will be taking part in the international online moot court competition. The event is organised by Leiden University in partnership with Baker McKenzie.

Sexual exploitation of children abroad: the Dutch government calls on its citizens to not look away from 'suspicious situations’ while turning a blind eye to the root causes of the problem themselves. Koning, who recently obtained her PhD on transnational sexual exploitation of children from Leiden…

On Tuesday 23 August 2022 the graduation ceremony took place in Leiden University’s Academy Building. Graduates and their guests greatly enjoyed the festive ceremony.

Sandy Overgaauw has been awarded a 25,000 euro grant from the LUF for her research into PTSD in Syrian refugee children in the Netherlands. The research should lead to a screening method that can be used to determine which children are at higher risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD…

Max van Duijn, Assistant Professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), has been awarded a Veni grant for his research into children's empathy. The ability to empathise can be studied by telling stories. This process, known as 'Theory of Mind' or ‘mindreading’, can provide important…

On Wednesday, 30 August 2023, the graduation ceremony took place in Leiden University’s Academy Building. The ceremony was a momentous occasion, attended by distinguished guests, faculty members, and the proud families and friends of the graduates. The event celebrated the hard work, dedication, and…

Researcher Max van Duijn and PhD student Bram van Dijk apply language models to stories told by children to investigate empathy. For this research, they received the Best Paper Award at the Computational Natural Language Learning Conference in Singapore.

Leiden University addresses the UN on children’s rights

Children have never acquired their own position in migration law and that is now slowly changing, according to Peter Rodrigues in ‘One World’. Partly as a result of the Children’s Rights Convention and judgments by the Court of Justice in Luxemburg, the tide seems to be turning and there is now more…

Research conducted by the University of Leiden and the University of Curaçao found that the rights of undocumented children in Curaçao, mostly from Venezuela, are severely under threat, which does not trigger rigorous actions by the Curaçaoan and Dutch authorities.

What do children think about computer science and the profession 'programmer'? Shirley de Wit and her colleagues from the Programming Education Research Lab (PERL) are investigating how children see programmers and whether they have stereotyped images of this profession. Last summer more than 550 children…

Prof. Ton Liefaard and Chrisje Sandelowsky-Bosman visited Curaçao to launch de Caribbean Center for Children’s Rights and present research.

Schools are essential to children’s development and provide numerous options for growth. They also facilitate learning beyond the classroom and give children tools that support their social and emotional development. But each child is different and some children have communication problems. How can…

When children were asked to draw a scientist, a bald, middle-aged man in a white coat was most often depicted. Why is that? A group of Leiden University science communication researchers discovered that children already get this impression in primary school. Published in PLOS ONE on 16 November.

On 8-9 December 2016 the Department of Children’s Rights of Leiden Law School held an international PhD conference on Children’s Rights in Leiden, under the direction of Ton Liefaard, Julia Sloth-Nielsen and Marielle Bruning. As one of the institutional partners of this department in the research program…

The case note examines the recent inquiry report published by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

At the request of the Dutch Parliament, Professor Marielle Bruning, Dr Kartica van der Zon (Dept. of Child Law), Professor Lenneke Alink and Dr Sabine van der Asdonk (Education and Child Studies) have produced a fact sheet on the placement of children in care in the Netherlands.

Organised in collaboration with the Bosnia and Herzegovina State Ministry of Justice, UNICEF’s Europe and Central Asia Regional Office and UNICEF’s Bosnia and Herzegovina Country Office, the conference took place from 25-27 February 2020, in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

Around seven per cent of children have difficulty learning their mother tongue because they have some form of developmental language disorder (DLD). World DLD Day on 15 October called attention to this disorder. Development psychologist Neeltje van den Bedem explains why this is important.

‘The system is failing’, ‘the goals are only being achieved to a limited extent’, ‘we’re letting children down’. These are some of the newspaper headlines that followed the publication of a report by researchers from Leiden University in September. Commissioned by the Dutch Research and Documentation…

Dutch children’s picture books are full of animals, but mainly mammals are portrayed. Especially pets and exotic animals are popular. A large part of the Dutch fauna is less visible, but biologist Michiel Hooykaas of Leiden University sees plenty of opportunities for a more biodiverse book world.

Traditional school tests, like the Dutch CITO, largely reflect students' existing knowledge and abilities. However, dynamic testing sheds light on students' learning potential, discovered Mirjam de Vreeze in her PhD research. This approach is especially promising for children with learning challenges,…

During the Summer School, held at Leiden Law School in Leiden and the Hague, the participants were offered a wealth of lectures and workshops on international and regional children’s rights issues affecting children, families and communities.

Children’s clothes are full of cute, fun and cool animals. Researcher Michiel Hooykaas investigated which animals were most prevalent, to see how cultural product can influence the knowledge of biodiversity.

Digitisation and poor reception of refugees are putting children’s rights at risk. This warning comes from Professor Ton Liefaard. His department is organising a summer school on this issue.

Livia, aged 7, was in class four. She loved to chat and was good at reading aloud. At least, at home. At school she never read aloud and she hadn't spoken a single word. What was going on? Selective mutism was the subject of the inaugural lecture by Maretha de Jonge, Professor by Special Appointment…

Recently the Department of Child Law of Leiden Law School (Leiden University) launched the Leiden Children’s Rights Observatory.

On 19-20 September, Leiden University Child Law Department and Terre de Hommes co-organized an expert meeting on ‘’Sale of Children and Illegal Adoption’’ at Leiden University.

In a collaborative effort between the Leiden Children’s Rights Observatory, the Leiden Law Academy, UNICEF and the Petitions Section of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a symposium held last week commemorated the tenth anniversary of the Optional Protocol to the Convention…

Many primary school children suffer from anxiety and their numbers are increasing. Psychologists from the Knowledge Center Anxiety & Stress (KAS) are developing and researching preventive training.

Corinne Dettmeijer-Vermeulen, the well-known legal expert and Leiden University alumna, was for many years the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children. On 26 November she will deliver the Cleveringa lecture.

Many children experience trauma and if they are unable to deal with it properly, it can have a huge personal and societal effect. Building resilience in vulnerable children and young people should therefore have the highest priority. This is the message of Anne-Laura van Harmelen, Professor of Brain,…

Postdoc and linguist Evelyn Bosma receives the Keetje Hodshon Prize for her dissertation. For her research on the multilingualism of Frisian children, Bosma previously won the Klokhuis Science Prize and the Campus Fryslân Science Prize.

Contribute to shaping the content and methods of future computer science education. That is what researchers hope to achieve with the Digital Transformation Research project. The Swiss National Science Foundation awarded 544,000 euros to this four-year project in December. The project will map the ideas…

'A great result for the effect of Pokémon Go on children with autism', says Carolien Rieffe in the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. 'Although we do not know whether the game will lead to friendships in the long term.'

On 22 and 23 November 2018, the international conference ‘Safeguarding Children’s Rights in Immigration Law’ organized by the Institute of Immigration Law and the Department of Child Law took place at Leiden University. Currently, there exists tension between the idea that children deserve specific…

The third edition of the bi-annual Children's Rights Moot Court has come to a spectacular end in the first week of April.

On early October, the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights released its October Newsletter to its friends and partner networks.

The case note examines the recent views adopted by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on a communication against Belgium.

Hoe kan de City Deal Kennis Maken bijdragen aan het formuleren van maatschappelijk relevant onderzoek dat de stad in al haar diversiteit centraal stelt? In de stad Leiden zijn burgers momenteel maar in beperkte mate betrokken bij het bepalen van de agenda van de lokale City Deal Kennis Maken. Dit onderzoeksproject…

Do general practitioners recognize children with or at risk of problematic anxiety and is there a pattern that might help differentiate those with and without anxiety disorders in general practice?