Young people are entitled to the same legal rights as adults. However past research has questioned the extent to which youth effectively understand their rights and perceive that they can assert them when necessary because of their development and power differences vis-à-vis adult criminal justice professionals. Young people’s understanding of their due process rights under theCanadian Charter of Rights and FreedomsandUnited Nations Convention on the Rights of the Childwere examined. Participants were fifty adolescents ranging in age from 13-17 who received a diversionary response by the Crown prosecutor or were sentenced by the court to probation in a courthouse in Toronto, Ontario. Results of semi-structured interviews conducted with youth indicated that while age plays some role, the lack of power experienced by youth vis-à-vis criminal justice professionals has the most bearing on the inability of youth to exercise their rights. Implications of the study are discussed.

Despite the increased risks and vulnerabilities that children and young people face due to the Coronavirus (covid-19), they are also some of the most active in their participatory responses to this global emergency. Drawing on transdisciplinarity, this paper considers how covid-19 has opened up new spaces and opportunities for the participation of children. For example, young people across the globe have been actively involved in raising digital awareness about covid-19, participating in environmental activism, and engaging in unique educational opportunities. While children and young people are often constructed as vulnerable, innocent and in need of protection, this pandemic reveals that they can transcend these adultist constructs.

Risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impact young people already occupying challenging circumstances, including young women and girls experiencing gender discrimination, exploitation and economic exclusion. Nevertheless, young women and girls are among the most active in shaping local/global responses. Through an intersectional approach that critically explores child and youth civil and political rights, this paper analyzes climate change activism led by young women and girls during COVID-19, as well as the intersectional complexities that impact the activism that they engage in and carry out. We argue that despite the negative impacts of the pandemic, young women and girls have opened new participatory spaces to positively shape our environment, while also navigating and defying gendered barriers, both in the present and for future generations.

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