Els Dumortier

Els Dumortier holds master’s degrees in law (1995) and criminology (1997). She is currently a professor of Youth Justice and Children’s Rights, Youth Criminology (with a focus on gender and diversity), and Constitutional Criminal Law at the Free University of Brussels. There, she is a member of the “Crime & Society” Research Group and serves as the supervisor-spokesperson for the Interdisciplinary Research Group “Voicing Youth at Social Risk”. Additionally, she is a coordinating member of the European Working Group on Juvenile Justice, and has recently joined the EU COST Action “Justice to Youth Language Needs: Human Rights Undermined by an Invisible Disadvantage”.

Her research focuses on young offenders, procedural youth justice, and children’s rights in practice (empirical children’s rights). Throughout her research, Els has developed various qualitative research skills, including judicial file analysis, participant observation, and conducting interviews. In recent years, she has promoted and co-developed new art-based and performative methods, such as filmmaking and photo-voicing, to amplify the voices of youth at social risk.