National individual consultancy to support the development of the concept note on diversion and strengthening the system of child offence prevention in Tajikistan, 80 w/ds, Dushanbe, Tajikis

Contract

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UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, Justice

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programs, in advocacy, and in operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias, or favoritism. To the degree that any child has an unequal chance in life — in its social, political, economic, civic, and cultural dimensions — her or his rights are violated. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education, and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfil their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. Therefore, the focus on equity is so vital. It accelerates progress towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

Over the years, UNICEF has consistently supported the Government of Tajikistan to reform the juvenile justice system. The goal is to establish a child-friendly justice system that upholds the rights of children in contact with the law in Tajikistan. This vision encompasses the protection of child offenders, victims, and witnesses of crime throughout all stages of the judicial procedures. UNICEF has focused its assistance on policy development, strengthening the capabilities of law enforcement and justice professionals, as well as child protection workers. The country has adopted several important programs, laws, and initiatives to protect the rights of the children in contact with the law, including the Juvenile Justice System Reform Programme for 2023-27 and its Action Plan; the social reintegration and rehabilitation of children in closed and semi closed institutions for 2020-24; the National Programme on Prevention of Offences by Children for 2020-24 and the Action Plan for the implementation of the programme. In accordance with the reform programme, the Ministry of Justice has established an inter-agency working group to coordinate the efforts of various state ministries and agencies involved in the reform process. The Programme’s action plan foresees elaboration of the Concept Note on diversion of children in conflict with the law in 2024. Establishment of effective diversion systems is particularly critical in Tajikistan. In 2021, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tajikistan jointly with UNICEF conducted a review of criminal court cases involving children. The data demonstrates a gradual and concerning decrease in the application of measures to divert children from the formal justice system. Between 2019 and 2021, 1,313 children were involved in minor and moderate level crimes eligible for diversion, yet they have been sentenced and have now criminal records. Furthermore, in 2020, Tajikistan introduced a new Law on the prevention of offenses by children. This law is being implemented by a multi-agency working group led by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who have also adopted the National Programme on Prevention of Offences by Children for the years 2020-2024. These policy documents indicate a strong commitment to addressing child offenses. However, there are several challenges hindering their effective implementation. These include poor coordination among relevant agencies, a lack of community-based services, inadequate localization efforts, and the use of outdated approaches that do not align with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and current standards. Currently, there is a lack of available evidence regarding the root causes of child offenses, although anecdotal evidence suggests that factors such as poverty and absence of parenting may contribute. UNICEF is seeking an individual national consultant to support the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Tajikistan (MoJ) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Tajikistan (MoIA) in the process of development of the concept note on diversion and to provide recommendations on strengthening the system of child offence prevention.

How can you make a difference?

The consultant is expected to work closely with the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the multi-agency working groups on child justice under the Ministry of Justice. The Consultant provides support to UNICEF international consultant in conduction of the legal analysis to reveal legislative gaps in introducing diversion in Tajikistan, child offence prevention, as well as in organizing and conducting bilateral and multilateral meetings with legal professions to assess practice on justice for children, specifically on application of alternative to detention measures and sensitizing local representatives of legal profession, including but not limited to prosecutors, police, judges, lawyers and academia on diversion. Based on the legal analysis and meetings conducted, the Consultant will support inter-agency working group and international consultant in elaboration of Concept Note on Diversion, as well as support in child offence prevention interventions. In addition, the Consultant will support UNICEF Team in conducting analysis of UNICEF core standard indicators related to justice for children and violence against children (around 45 indicators) and status of Tajikistan`s compliance with them and present the results of the assessment, along with metadata of those indicators to the working group under the Ministry of Justice in local language.

Duty station: Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Estimated duration******: 80 working days between 1 February 2024 - 30 November 2024

Supervisor: UNICEF Tajikistan Child Protection Officer

The consultant is expected to perform and accomplish the following tasks:

• Conduct an analysis of local legislation, child justice practices and available community services for the development of diversion mechanism. As part of the analysis, arrange and participate in fact checking meetings with law practitioners and academia, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and civil society organization to identify law enforcement practices, its gaps and bottlenecks.
• In the process of developing of Diversion Concept Note for Tajikistan, support UNICEF’s Child Protection team and international consultant by developing legal memos, capturing research outcomes and responses to legal procedural questions.
• Provide support to UNICEF’s Child Protection team and international consultant in communication with national stakeholders by scheduling meetings, preparing letters, and developing agendas and minutes for events and meetings.
• Review texts developed by International Consultant to ensure consistency with local legislation, procedures and best practices.
• Support International Consultant with the development of a document capturing international best practices on diversion to be further shared with the UNICEF CO team, Ministry of Justice, and other relevant stakeholders.
• Review existing practices, approaches in working with children, tools (in particular, law enforcement juvenile prevention unit), including case management used by the MoIA and data on child offence prevention and provide recommendations for improvement of those tools.
• Support MoIA in elaboration of SOPs on local multi-disciplinary groups on child offence prevention.
• Support the team with the development of a brief roadmap with recommendations to strengthen child offence prevention practices in the country.
• Support the team with the development of methodology and data collection instruments to be utilized by the local counterpart for the assessment of the reasons for juvenile offending in the country.
• Conduct the analysis of Tajikistan`s compliance/rating under UNICEF core standard indicators with recommendations to improve possible bottlenecks and the presentation of the results, along with indicator metadata to the working group under the MoJ.

WORK ASSIGNMENT

Tasks/Milestone: (in line with the scope elaborated in section-III)

Deliverables/Outputs:

Anticipated Timeline

% of payment (maximum up to 5 payments)

 Conduct an analysis of local legislation, child justice practices and available community services for the development of diversion mechanism. As part of the analysis, arrange and participate in fact checking meetings with law practitioners and academia, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and civil society organization to identify law enforcement practices, its gaps and bottlenecks.

 In the process of developing of Diversion Concept Note for Tajikistan, support UNICEF’s Child Protection team and international consultant by developing legal memos, capturing research outcomes and responses to legal procedural questions.

 Provide support to UNICEF’s Child Protection team and international consultant in communication with national stakeholders by scheduling meetings, preparing letters, and developing agendas and minutes for events and meetings.

Del 1: Inception report identifying proposed methodology, data collection tools and detailed work plan for the achievement of these three tasks.

**The report provided should be in line with UN standards for inception reports. The inception report should take into consideration agreed definitions, outline detailed scope; methodology; ethical considerations; FGD and KII tools; field visit plan, data collection methods, timeline for activities and submission of deliverables.

February - April 2024

30 working days

37% (1st instalment)

 Review texts developed by International Consultant to ensure consistency with local legislation, procedures and best practices.

 Support International Consultant with the development of a document capturing international best practices on diversion to be further shared with the UNICEF CO team, Ministry of Justice, and other relevant stakeholders.

 Review existing practices, approaches in working with children, tools (in particular, law enforcement juvenile prevention unit), including case management used by the MoIA and data on child offence prevention and provide recommendations for improvement of those tools.

 Support MoIA in elaboration of SOPs on local multi-disciplinary groups on child offence prevention.

Del 2: Minutes of the fact checking meetings with stakeholders approved by UNICEF.

Report on review of existing practices, approaches in working with children, tools (in particular, law enforcement juvenile prevention unit), including case management used by the MoIA and data on child offence prevention and provide recommendations for improvement of those tools approved by UNICEF.

SOPs on local multi-disciplinary groups on child offence prevention is elaborated and approved by multi-disciplinary working groups.

May – August 2024

32 working days

38% (2nd instalment)

 Support the team with the development of a brief roadmap with recommendations to strengthen child offence prevention practices in the country.

 Support the team with the development of methodology and data collection instruments to be utilized by the local counterpart for the assessment of the reasons for juvenile offending in the country.

 Conduct the analysis of Tajikistan`s compliance/rating under UNICEF core standard indicators with recommendations to improve possible bottlenecks and the presentation of the results, along with indicator metadata to the working group under the MoJ.

Del 3: Methodology and data collection instruments for the assessment of the reasons for juvenile offences approved by UNICEF.

Analysis of Tajikistan`s compliance/rating under UNICEF core standard indicators with recommendations to improve possible bottlenecks approved by UNICEF.

Presentation of the analysis to the working group under the Ministry of Justice conducted.

September – November 2024

18 working days

25% (3rd instalment)

Total:

80 days

100%

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• Education: University degree in law, criminal justice, child development, child protection, political sciences or other relevant field.
• Working experience: At least 10 years of professional work experience in legal profession, including legal analyses, policy reforms, justice system reform.
• Demonstrated knowledge and technical capacity in justice system reform, knowledge in justice for children, especially child offence prevention is an asset.
• Expertise: Proven track record in providing technical guidance and assistance in justice, child offence prevention, or legal analysis.
• Skills: Strong coordination skills, analytical and conceptual thinking. Ability to work with large teams and guide policy discussions. Demonstrated skills in working with multi agency groups, including law enforcement, judiciary, and prosecutors. Excellent writing, communication, and presentation skills with stakeholders. Ability to work under pressure and commitment to work to tight timeframe.
• Languages: Fluency in Tajik and Russian is required. Knowledge of English is an asset.

Qualified candidates are requested to submit:

1. Cover letter/application/CV.
2. A technical proposal with proposed approach to managing the consultancy deliverables, showing understanding of tasks.
3. Financial quote (separate from technical proposal in TJS) for the consultancy in per deliverable, also stating the timeframe for completion of deliverable and/or daily rate including travel costs for 2 trips to regional centers and DSA for 10 days.
4. Examples of previous, relevant work related to the deliverables.
5. Applications without technical and financial proposals will not be considered.

Applications must be received in the system by 12 January 2024 on our website.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.