Dr Rodgers was awarded her doctorate in International Development, funded by the AHRC through the Midlands4Cities DTP at the University of Birmingham in 2022.

Her thesis makes the case for why and how the participation of children under the age of eighteen should be facilitated in processes of transitional justice and argues for a framework grounded in what is understood as the ‘right to be heard’ for children, as outlined in article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Dr Rodgers has held focus groups with children between the ages of 13-18 in Rwanda on this topic alongside an affiliated NGO, Never Again Rwanda. She is the project lead for the Children, Youth, Peace and the Arts research group. She was previously Postgraduate Research Director for the Children and Childhood Network at the University of Birmingham and ran an AHRC-funded project (‘Child Rights Week’/’Child Right Fortnight’) with schools in the Midlands educating children about their rights.

Dr Rodgers holds an LLM in International Law with a focus on Crime, Justice and Human Rights from the University of Birmingham.

Research 

Dr Rodgers’ key research areas are the following:

• Transitional Justice
• Children’s rights (particularly the ‘right to be heard’ and associated rights)
• Using/developing rights-based frameworks for the participation of children in post-conflict justice processes
• The creative arts as a method of child participation in transitional justice processes

To build upon and expand her research in child participation in transitional justice, Dr Rodgers will be publishing her thesis as a monograph, entitled ‘Child Participation in Transitional Justice: The Case of Rwanda’ as part of the Springer Series in Transitional Justice.

The monograph will provide practical recommendations and a fresh impetus toward a focus on the practices of giving children’s views serious consideration and constitutes a crucial original contribution to scholarship on transitional justice.

As additional research for the monograph, Dr Rodgers will once again travel to Rwanda to work alongside her partners, this time to hold interviews with national and local leadership in transitional justice and related fields. She will also hold hybrid workshops for policymakers, practitioners and academics specialising in child participation in transitional justice in Rwanda, the UK and beyond, hosted by the Department of War Studies

Publications 

• Rodgers, J. Child Participation in Transitional Justice: The Case of Rwanda. Springer [forthcoming]
• Rodgers, J. & Karemera, D. 'Child participation, the creative arts, and transitional justice in Rwanda.' Peacebuilding [forthcoming]