Cecilia Polizzi is President & Founding Executive Director of CRTG Working Group, the premier I/NGO in the world dedicated to protecting children from terrorist abuse and exploitation. Polizzi is a human rights lawyer, lecturer and scholar with more than a decade of experience in human rights, criminal and juvenile justice and other spheres of law, including specific issues connected to international security and counterterrorism. Through her scholarship, Polizzi dedicates continuous effort in supporting the application of the rule of law in counter-terrorism policy and regulation, and particularly to the affordability of human rights and juvenile justice to children in this context. She firstly exposed the exploitation of children in terrorism as a major pillar of terrorist groups´ strategy to self-perpetuation and tactic of war and established that indoctrination serves to ensure the propagation and long-term survival of extremist ideology, inter-generationally. A globally recognized expert, her work was published in several academic journals and outlets. It was featured on one of the foremost Italian political newsweeklies “L ́ Espresso”, GEDI Gruppo Editoriale and supported the drafting of the 2020 Annual Report on Terrorism and Human Rights of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (A/HRC/45/27).
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