Sexual Offences and the Law
This course is an LLM/MPhil course targeted at students interested in criminal justice, criminology, human rights, and, specifically, sexual violence. The course will be convened and taught by Associate Professor Jameelah Omar (UCT), in partnership with UCT Honorary Professor, and former CLS Director, Dee Smythe, Advocate Bronwyn Pithey from the Women’s Legal Centre, and Dr Sheena Swemmer from the Centre for Applied Legal Studies. The course is aimed at critically engaging with sexual offences as a social phenomenon impacted by (inter alia) gender, race and power. The course is taught as a block to allow for the expert partners to be available for the duration of the course. Pedagogically, this allows for all participants (lecturers and students) to become embedded in the content over the course of a week, which promotes continuity and higher-order critical debate. Each of the lecturers brings their own expertise into the classroom, both by taking the lead on specific topics but also sitting in and participating in all other sessions. This provides for a deep-dive into the complex problem of sexual offences, making for a critical, engaged and participatory master class.
Children’s Rights
Drawing on her experience working on children's rights at the Equal Education Law Centre, CLS Director, Nurina Ally, co-convenes and teaches an LLM semester course on "International Rights of the Child". The course establishes important foundations for students interested in developing the law on children's rights, particularly at the regional and international level. In addition to a course on children's rights, Ally supervises several dissertations focused on cutting-edge issues in the children's rights field, ranging from child trafficking to the accountability of private actors in education.