United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

What is the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)?

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is a global leader in the fight against illicit drugs and international crime. Its headquarters are in Vienna and it has 20 field offices as well as a liaison offices in New York and Brussels.

UNODC assists Member States to take action against illicit drugs, crime and terrorism. In the Millennium Declaration, Member States also resolved to intensify efforts to counter transnational crime, drugs and international terrorism.

Activities of UNODC

• To carry out research to increase knowledge and understanding of drugs and crime issues and expand the evidence-base for policy and operational decisions.
• To assist States in the ratification and implementation of international treaties, the development of domestic legislation on drugs, crime and terrorism, and the provision of secretariat services to treaty-based bodies.
• Field-based technical cooperation projects to support Member States to fight against illicit drugs, crime and terrorism.

More: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/about.html

UNODC and children

The Global Youth Network

UNODC runs a Global Youth Network project to increase youth involvement with the international community in developing drug abuse prevention policies and programmes. The network has three main objectives:

• increase communication between youth groups and UNODC
• collect and disseminate information on good practices and
• build the capacity of youth groups across the world to successfully conceptualise and implement drug abuse prevention projects.

Regional youth networks:

To join your regional youth network, go to: http://www.unodc.org/youthnet/youthnet_regional_networks.html

Crime

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime created the Guidelines on Justice for Child Victims and Witnesses of Crime with UNICEF and the International Bureau for Children’s Rights. They were developed to help make sure that children who have been harmed by crime and children who have seen others harmed are protected and treated fairly when they say what happened to them in a court of law.

Child-friendly version

Human Trafficking

UNODC designed the Global Programme against Trafficking in Human Beings (GPAT) in collaboration with the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) and launched in March 1999. GPAT assists Member States to combat trafficking in human beings. It highlights the involvement of organised criminal groups in human trafficking and promotes the development of effective ways of cracking down on perpetrators.

The GPAT's' overarching objective is to bring to the foreground the involvement of organised criminal groups in human trafficking and to promote the development of effective criminal justice-related responses.

Related links

• What if the victim consents? Can children consent?

Drugs

Resources for children

• ROSA: Drugs are not child’s play