Since 2015, local municipalities in the Netherlands have been responsible for the organisation of the youth care and child protection system. One of the basic assumptions underlying the new Youth Act (2015) is the mobilisation and empowerment of the family to help solve their problems. Consequently, the participation of children and parents is essential in the implementation of youth care services. However, it seems that substantial differences exist between municipalities in realising children's participation in decisions that are taken concerning their care and protection. This article provides an interdisciplinary perspective on child participation; it explores both the legal opportunities for participation and the extent to which children can make use of these opportunities in practice. It is concluded that municipalities have large discretion in giving shape to child participation in the access to voluntary and coercive youth care. However, child participation is better regulated and implemented in practice with respect to compulsory youth care via court orders. Throughout almost the entire process, the minimum age limit from when children are involved in the decision-making process is 12 years, which means that children below that age have scarce opportunities to participate.

According to international children’s rights law and standards, juvenile defendants should be given the opportunity to be heard in juvenile justice proceedings. Moreover, from developmental psychological research it can be concluded that young people who appear in court usually have a limited understanding of judicial procedures. Therefore, it is argued that juveniles need to be assisted in giving their views and in understanding juvenile justice proceedings. Insights from the children’s rights and the developmental psychological perspective are taken as starting points in this study to formulate requirements for the effective participation of juvenile defendants. Moreover, this article presents an overview of youth court practices in 11 European countries in order to analyse the extent to which the requirements are fulfilled in practice.

In recent years, there has been increased attention for the position of adolescents and young adults in the justice system. The Netherlands implemented the Act on Adolescent Criminal Law in 2014, making it possible to sentence young adults up to the age of 23 at the time of the offence as juveniles. This article addresses the most recent Dutch reforms in order to identify key challenges to consider when accommodating young adults in the justice system. It is aimed to highlight the important lessons to be learned from the Dutch experience with a flexible approach to sentencing adolescents and young adults.

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Refugee children are often neither recognised as rights holders nor as active agents in asylum procedures. A one-sided view of these children as vulnerable objects is not in coherence with international children’s rights, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which regards all children as autonomous subjects and full bearers of rights. Through 21 in-depth interviews with unaccompanied, separated, and accompanied children in the Netherlands, their perceptions and experiences are collected and analysed in relation to their right to be informed and to participate in asylum application proceedings. It is shown that children possess little information on the asylum application interview, which they perceive as particularly stressful. However, they display agency in the choices they make during the interview. Accompanied children find themselves in a rather difficult position, feeling jointly responsible for the outcome of the procedure. It is concluded that effective and meaningful participation, in line with the international children’s rights framework, is difficult to realise in the context of asylum proceedings.