Persons belonging to minority groups face discrimination in the criminal justice system on account of their ethnicity, religion or language. Some of them face additional and intersecting forms of discrimination due to their age, gender, sexual orientation or disability. In the criminal justice system, a number of groups and individuals are therefore particularly vulnerable to these forms of discrimination. 1. Minority children As highlighted by the UN Study on Violence against Children and the Joint Report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children on prevention of and responses to violence against children within the juvenile justice system, detention of children is one the most important factors of violence and human rights violations of children. With an estimate of at least 1 million children deprived of their liberty worldwide, the majority of whom are awaiting trial, held for minor offences and are first-time offenders. Incidents of violence occur while in custody of police and security forces, in both pre-trial and post-sentence detention or during a form of sentencing. Violence can be perpetrated by staff, adult detainees and other children, or as a result of self-harm. Children from ethnic, religious or linguistic minority groups, in particular, are often overrepresented in the criminal justice system. This may be explained by discrimination by law enforcement officials, but also by the greater extent of social exclusion experienced by those groups in the countries where they live. Social exclusion tends to result in patterns of poverty, domestic violence, gang activity, substance abuse, barriers to education, and poor prospects of meaningful employment.6 Children of minority groups may also face additional discrimination when their parents are in contact with the criminal justice system due to lack of appropriate social and educational opportunities. The General Assembly, when adopting the UN Model Strategies and Practical Measures on the Elimination of Violence against Children in the Field of Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in 2014, urged Member States to remove any barrier—including any kind of discrimination—that children may face in accessing justice and in effectively participating in criminal proceedings, to pay particular attention to the issue of the rights of the child and the child’s best interests in the administration of justice and to ensure that children in contact with the criminal justice system are treated in a child-sensitive manner, taking into account the specific needs of those children who are in particularly vulnerable situations.7 2. Minority women The disturbingly high incidence of violence against women continues to be met with impunity. Reasons include discriminatory provisions and practices in the criminal justice systems, such as those allowing perpetrators to avoid prosecution if they marry the victim or attaching low evidentiary weight to the testimony of the victims. Even where adequate legal protection and safeguards are in place, there are chronic implementation failures in every region of the world. 6 7 See https://srsg.violenceagainstchildren.org/sites/default/files/documents/docs/A-HRC-21_25_EN.pdf A/RES/68/189. Page 3 of 11