Supervised by Professor Géraldine Mathieu, a specialist in juvenile and family law and co-director of the Vulnerabilities & Societies Center, the UNamur research team involved in the CAPACITI project consists of Manon Brulard, a researcher in the Faculty of Law, and two student researchers, Lisa Salmon and Donaciene Quoirin. Together, they are exploring a specific question: How can a child truly participate in decisions that affect them when their family is breaking apart? “The effects of parental separations on children are still insufficiently documented from the perspective of their rights,” explains Manon Brulard.

To gather the children’s perspectives, the team first attempted individual and group interviews. They ran into a telling obstacle: parental consent. Without parental consent, they had no access to the children, even when the children themselves were eager to participate. “This really raised questions, because we’re conducting research on children’s participation and yet we find ourselves blocked by the goodwill of adults,” summarizes Manon Brulard. “This obstacle illustrates a major dilemma: how can we ensure that children’s rights are effectively upheld in a context where their lack of legal capacity prevents them from exercising those rights independently?” adds Géraldine Mathieu.

The team was nevertheless able to meet with about twenty children through interviews. They then rethought their approach and developed educational activities conducted directly in classrooms with children aged 8 to 12, with a twofold goal: to inform them about their rights and to provide them with a space to express themselves. At the same time, Manon Brulard met with child welfare professionals (judges, psychologists, mediators, and lawyers) to examine their practices and identify their needs.

One of the most striking findings is also one of the simplest: children’s rights are not widely known. “How can a child exercise and defend rights they don’t even know exist?” asks Manon Brulard. A survey of nearly 800 students preparing for careers in child-related fields confirms this in a troubling way: 40% of them had never heard of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and rated their knowledge of these rights at 4 out of 10—the same score they gave to the importance placed on these rights in their training. “These students are the professionals of tomorrow. If they themselves aren’t properly trained, how can we guarantee children’s rights in the field?” the researcher asks.

But lack of knowledge is not the only obstacle. Fieldwork reveals deeper tensions. The first is almost paradoxical: the desire to protect a child can end up silencing them. “We want to shield them from parental conflict. But in reality, they’re already at the heart of that conflict at home,” observes Manon Brulard. Protecting them isn’t enough; we must also listen to them. Added to this is a power dynamic between adults and children that remains very pronounced. “There’s a very hierarchical relationship in which the child must comply with decisions without being consulted beforehand,” notes the researcher. 

Professionals, for their part, often feel that they are listening, but children do not experience it that way. They generally receive no feedback on what they express and do not even know if their words are actually being taken into account.

Finally, children themselves censor what they say out of fear of hurting their parents. “They start thinking about the consequences of their words at a very early age. They don’t want to cause harm, so they stay silent. We’ve observed this fear in every classroom,” insists Manon Brulard.

These findings inform the design of practical tools. At UNamur, within the TRANSITIONS Institute, the research team is, for example, developing a board game inspired by Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit, “where the goal isn’t to win, but to speak out about one’s rights,” explains Lisa Salmon, who played a major role in its design. The research team is also creating an interactive workbook that combines games, word searches, and practical resources to help children continue reflecting on the topics covered in the workshops at home. 

Each project partner is currently developing its own research tools, with the goal of eventually co-creating an artistic work, a board game, a serious game, and interactive stories. Legal fact sheets, primarily intended for children, will also be posted online. Training sessions, e-learning modules for childcare professionals, and a white paper with recommendations will round out this collection. The white paper will also be aimed at children and policymakers, with the goal of transforming the research findings into concrete changes. All of these resources will be brought together within a cross-border center of expertise, the specific form of which has yet to be defined.

The CAPACITI research project (Children’s Participation, Space, and Power to Act in Promoting Their Rights) brings together 8 funding partners and 19 methodological partners active in Belgium, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. It is funded under the Interreg Greater Region program. Its final results and the tools developed will be released starting in February 2028.

Game-based learning is based on a simple principle: learning through play. Introduced at the School of Law in 2023 by Sarah Larielle, a teaching assistant, this approach has been gradually developed and expanded during the practical sessions of the contract law course. “The goal is twofold: to increase our students’ engagement in class while raising their awareness of certain societal issues, using real-world cases that may resonate with their lives as students,” explains Eva Gillard, a teaching assistant and doctoral student at the Faculty of Law.

In practice, students explore concepts through engaging activities before applying them in various games and role-playing scenarios. “The sessions are varied and pursue different educational objectives: exploring and applying key concepts, developing argumentation skills, learning to structure responses, and so on,” explains Eva Gillard. This approach also transforms the role of teaching assistants. “We move from group to group, sit down with the students, and guide them through questioning rather than giving them the answers directly. They experiment, compare their ideas, and discuss among themselves and with the teaching assistant in order to gradually build their own reasoning.” 

To support this pedagogical shift, the team received funding from PUNCH (Namur University Pedagogy in Transition). This funding made it possible to design new sessions from scratch, as well as to customize and professionalize the teaching materials. The Faculty of Law now has robust, durable materials that can be reused year after year. 

Among this year’s new features is an interactive escape game, designed entirely by the team of teaching assistants to help students prepare for the exam. Built on the Genially platform, it puts participants in the shoes of a trainee lawyer. Divided into groups of three, they receive a paper case file along with a mission: to demonstrate their mastery of the case in order to access the conclusions, which are locked in the firm’s safe.

Using fabricated case files (consultation notes, expert reports, surveillance footage), the students analyze the facts before continuing their investigation online. As they progress, they answer a series of questions, solve various puzzles, and gather the clues needed to reconstruct the password that opens the safe. “With this exercise, students cover the entire subject matter through a practical case study similar to the one they’ll encounter on the exam.”

The benefits of this teaching method are evident among both students and teaching assistants. “This approach has been bearing fruit for the past three years. Our students are more motivated, more engaged, and develop a deeper level of critical thinking than they do in more traditional exercises,” notes Eva Gillard. 

This positive feedback was confirmed by a survey of students who have benefited from these new teaching methods:

• The teaching method implemented was the primary factor that increased student participation and engagement during practical sessions.
• The approach taken by the teaching assistants—who are present within the groups and sit among the students during discussions—is the second factor that has boosted student engagement.
• The practical sessions received excellent ratings, with an average score of approximately 8.5 out of 10.
• The board game and the escape room, both created entirely with PUNCH funding, are the students’ favorite sessions.

While domestic violence is becoming an increasingly prominent topic in public discourse, this does not mean that it is fully understood. On the contrary. It was this observation that led to the creation of the biennial conference of the Association Famille & Droit, co-chaired by Professor Géraldine Mathieu and Professor Yves-Henri Leleu, which brings together family law professors from French-speaking universities in Belgium. Organized with the support of the “Children’s Rights” Unit at the Vulnerabilities & Societies (V&S) Center at UNamur and the SMAJ (Marche Service for Assistance to Litigants), it brought together 230 researchers, judges, lawyers, psychologists, and practitioners united by a shared conviction: to better understand a complex phenomenon in order to respond to it more effectively. This collective reflection led to the publication of the anthology *Intrafamilial Violence: Understanding, Identifying, and Taking Action: An Interdisciplinary and Systemic Approach*, published by Larcier-Intersentia and edited by Professor Géraldine Mathieu.

“There are topics that a society can never discuss too much, as long as it continues to learn and question itself,” says Géraldine Mathieu. One of the central themes of the conference and the book is precisely the call to “have the courage to be nuanced—not to downplay violence, but to better understand situations and develop more appropriate responses.”

Understand, name, act: these three verbs structure the book just as they structured the conference. Three verbs that, according to the professor, “emerged naturally,” as they reflect both an ethical and an intellectual imperative in the face of realities that “defy simplistic explanations.”

One of the book’s major contributions is that it places the concept of coercive control at the heart of its analysis. “It invites us to shift our perspective,” explains Géraldine Mathieu. “It reminds us that domestic violence is not limited to a few visible incidents, but can be part of a gradual dynamic of control and domination.”

This concept helps us grasp a reality that has long been underestimated: a person can gradually lose their freedom, self-confidence, or autonomy without there necessarily being any physical violence. Isolation, surveillance, control over finances or movements, systematic belittling… these are all mechanisms that build lasting control, the consequences of which can be just as devastating as physical violence. The book explores how this concept, now recognized within the Belgian legal system, compels the law to listen more closely to victims and to “take seriously realities that sometimes fell outside our usual categories,” explains Géraldine Mathieu.

The book also devotes significant attention to invisible forms of violence (psychological, economic, administrative, or digital), including those that continue after separation and those that affect children. “To name it is already to acknowledge it. And to acknowledge it is to enable better protection,” emphasizes Géraldine Mathieu.

These forms of violence pose a major challenge: they defy existing legal categories, often evade reporting mechanisms, and remain underdocumented. The book’s contributions aim to bring these forms of violence to light through statistical, sociological, and clinical approaches, while also examining the blind spots in public policy. As Géraldine Mathieu puts it: “Words are not just for describing the world. Identifying a form of violence means acknowledging what victims are going through and better understanding the mechanisms at work.”

In the face of this complexity, compartmentalized approaches reveal their limitations. The book brings together 25 contributions from academics, judges, lawyers, clinicians, and practitioners in the field, all sharing a common conviction: “The most relevant solutions emerge when everyone contributes their experience and is willing to learn from others.”

The law (criminal, family, property, and juvenile) is analyzed in depth at the Belgian, European, and international levels, but is constantly placed in dialogue with psychology, sociology, and practices in the field.

The conference embodied this same approach. By bringing together in one room professionals who do not always cross paths, it allowed new perspectives to emerge. “When professionals who don’t always follow the same practices take the time to listen to one another, new ideas emerge and everyone leaves a little changed,” observes Géraldine Mathieu. The outcome exceeded her expectations: for Marie-Amélie Delvaux, an attorney and lecturer at the Faculty of Law, the day was “eye-opening”: “We’re leaving with concrete tools; the speakers drew us into their cause.”

The book builds on this momentum by presenting innovative approaches and inspiring practices to improve the identification, prevention, and support of victims. 

The Vulnerabilities & Societies Research Center at UNamur takes a resolutely interdisciplinary approach to situations of human vulnerability, at the intersection of law, psychology, and the social sciences. It pays particular attention to vulnerable populations and fundamental rights.

Its unique character is based on a twofold goal: to produce rigorous knowledge and to foster dialogue between academic scholarship and practical fieldwork.

“Addressing serious issues with rigor, but also with enough openness to learn from others,” summarizes Géraldine Mathieu, co-director of the center.

Beyond research and teaching, V&S; sees itself as a meeting place between the academic world and the field, convinced that knowledge realizes its full value when it is shared and discussed. This mission is fully illustrated by this conference and the accompanying book.

A specialist in constitutional law and fundamental rights, Stéphanie Wattier has established herself as one of Belgium’s leading academic voices on the intersection of gender and human rights. With some 100 publications to her credit, this book is the result of years of research and teaching, particularly through her course “Law, Gender, and Society” taught in the Faculty of Law and in the inter-university master’s program specializing in gender studies.

Primarily grounded in Belgian law, the book incorporates numerous developments in European law, including the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as elements of comparative law.

The book opens with an analysis of the emergence of the concept of “gender” and its reception in law, before addressing topics such as gender identity, the physical and psychological integrity of intersex people, sexual orientation, gender-based violence, reproductive health, and gender equality.

The foreword is written by Stéphanie Hennette Vauchez, professor of public law at the University of Paris Nanterre and a leading expert on gender issues, a scholarly endorsement that underscores the significance of this work beyond national borders.

While not intended as a popular science guide, Gender Through the Lens of Human Rights was written to be accessible to a wide audience: lawyers, law students, activists, social workers, policymakers, and curious citizens will all find food for thought within its pages. This accessibility reflects Stéphanie Wattier’s conviction that legal research must be grounded in real-world practice and accessible to society as a whole.

Co-director of the Center for Vulnerabilities and Societies (V&S) and Vice President of the Transitions Institute at UNamur, as well as a member of the University’s Gender Committee, Stéphanie Wattier embodies this ambition for research that is both rigorous and grounded in the real world, addressing the challenges of our time. Her expertise is regularly sought after at national and international conferences, by the media, by members of civil society, and by the various Belgian parliaments.

The University of Namur is strongly committed to gender equality, diversity, and inclusion. Since the creation of a gender group in 2011, followed by a dedicated Vice-Rectorate in 2013, UNamur has implemented a proactive policy centered on four pillars: human dignity, gender equality, inclusion, and the fight against harassment. On campus, the PHARE (Protection HARcèlement Étudiant) initiative, launched in 2021, allows any student who is a victim or witness to report an uncomfortable situation and receive anonymous and confidential support. Gender equality is also one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to which UNamur has fully committed.