Restorative Justice Week

International Restorative Justice Week 2025 Embedding Restorative Justice in the Human Rights

In 2025 the international Restorative Justice Week campaign centres around the call for recognising restorative justice as a means to uphold human rights and the recognition of access to restorative justice as an inherent component of existing justice human rights.
 

In recent years, there has been a growing movement within the wider restorative justice field to link the values of restorative justice with international and regional human rights standards. This year's campaign builds on the work of numerous international restorative justice organisations and professionals anchoring restorative justice in the human rights framework. The theme for this year's campaign was identified collaboratively with restorative justice organisations across the globe. 

We invite you to join our call for recognising restorative justice in the international human rights framework. You can take the following steps: 

• Sign and share Manifesto for Restorative Justice and Human Rights (launched on the 18th of November, during the Restorative Justice Week).  
• Join international Restorative Justice Week campaign! Communicate about it and organise your own event/campaign actions for the week! 
• Get in touch with stakeholders, such as human rights organisations in your country and tell them about the campaign or organise a talk with them. They can also share messages about restorative justice during the week, endorse and sign the Manifesto once it is launched!  
• Tell us the details of your #RJWeek event so we can include it overview of global intiatives happening during that week. 

Sign up for our Newsflashes and follow us on social media (@euforumrj) to get more updates! 

It all started in 1975 in England, where prison chaplains launched a day to remember incarcerated people, the ‘Prisoner’s Sunday’. The idea was then spread in other countries and 20 years later it become the ‘Prisoner’s Week’.
Finally, in 1996 Canada expanded the prisoner’s week into the ‘Restorative Justice Week: Community, Victims, and Prisoners’, later shortened to ‘Restorative Justice Week’.  
Nowadays, the International RESTORATIVE JUSTICE WEEK (#RJWeek) takes place every year all over Europe and beyond. The European Forum for Restorative Justice joins the annual international campaign since 2000 with initiatives organised by the Secretariat and by sharing information on events launched by our members! 

The ‘Prisoner’s Week’ is still celebrated and in Belgium the national prison week and our international Restorative Justice Week are celebrated with a good collaboration between the EFRJ and local organisers working in prison settings: for example, in 2017 their theme is about family members of prisoners, something where restorative justice can have a proper say.