Özlem Lakatos

Özlem Lakatos is a Scientific Collaborator at the Center for Children's Rights Studies of the University of Geneva. Since September 2017, she has been working alongside Professor Philip D. Jaffé , a Member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

Her primary activities include research, teaching, supervising master’s students’ academic work, and coordinating an annual 4-week seminar on Child Abuse and Violence.She also acts as an advisor for master students, helping them find internships in the field of children’s rights.

She co-founded the association “ 30 Ans de Droits de l’Enfant ” with Prof. Philip D. Jaffé and Dr. hc Jean Zermatten, a former Member of the UNCRC (2005-2013). The association was established to coordinate international celebrations marking the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 2019.

She is pursuing a PhD in Social Sciences at the Institute of Gender Studies , University of Geneva, focusing on the international rights of girls, intersecting women’s and children’s rights. Using a gender and postcolonial approach, she studies the construction of the category “girl-s”, both historically and analytically.

Since August 2024, Özlem is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the City University of New York. 

Education & work experience

Özlem is a social scientist with an interdisciplinary background oriented towards international affairs and human rights. She attended universities in France, Canada, Switzerland, and Belgium. She studied law and political science at the University of Amiens (Bachelor / Licence in 2013) and at the University of Moncton (Master / Maîtrise with honors in 2014), followed by European and Global studies at the University of Geneva and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Master of Arts in 2016).  During her studies, she worked for her universities as a Student Ambassador (France), a Teaching Assistant in Political Science (Canada), and a French Language Assistant for Erasmus students (Belgium). 

Prior to joining the University of Geneva in 2017, first as a Research & Training Assistant and then as a Scientific Collaborator, she worked in several institutions such as the UN, the Council of Europe, the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF), and the French Ministry of Defense (DGRIS / Sub-Saharan Africa Division). She volunteered in several children’s rights-related projects with NGOs in Senegal, the United Kingdom, and Bulgaria. She also served as a Former Youth Counselor of the City of Amiens (2012-2014) and of the Region of Hauts-de-France (2011-2015), and she is a Global Shaper Alumni - an initiative of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Research interests

• Girls’ Rights, Children’s rights, Women’s Rights.
• UN Human Rights System (Human Rights Treaty Bodies, Human Rights Council, Universal Periodic Review) / UN agencies (as UNICEF, UNFPA)
• Concepts of intersectionality, representations, vulnerabilities, biopolitics
• Gender and postcolonial studies
• Foucault’s Archaeological and Genealogical Methodologies
• Qualitative methods (archives, interviews, observations)