Seoul (Republic of Korea) Hybrid, 9-11 November 2022 – The CoE hosted the 6th session of the biennial International Conference on Governance, Crime and Justice Statistics, jointly organized with Statistics Korea (KOSTAT), National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and UNODC-INEGI Center of Excellence. After the successful online organization of the 5th session of the Conference, the 6th edition was the first time this event was held in a hybrid format, with speakers and participants joining both in-person and online.
The Conference opened with remarks by Hoon Han, Commissioner of KOSTAT, Graciela Márquez Colin, President of INEGI, and Jean-Luc Lemahieu, Director of the Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs of UNODC. They highlighted the importance of the event to foster more active exchanges of knowledge and bringing this topic closer to the Asia-Pacific region, being the first time this international Conference was hosted in the region.
Aiming to increase the availability, quality and use of data to inform evidence-based policy making, the Conference provided a good opportunity to discuss methodologies and strengthen national capacities in the areas of crime and criminal justice statistics. The Conference consisted of a total of 16 sessions covering multiple thematic areas, with over 60 speakers sharing their expertise in relevant topics. Panels of the sessions were arranged in a hybrid format, with speakers and moderators joining both online and in-person. A special workshop session was organized on Thursday, covering the measurement of crime and violence through population surveys. Throughout the conference, interpretation was available in four different languages – English, Spanish, Russian, and Korean.
Hyun Jung Park, Coordinator of UNODC-KOSTAT CoE, delivered a joint presentation with Melissa Alvarado, UN Women, in the session ‘Data-Driven Decision Making in Eliminating Gender-based Violence and Violence in Conflict’. In the presentation, they discussed the necessity to raise awareness on femicide, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, and Park presented the ‘Statistical framework for measuring the gender-related killing of women and girls (“femicide/feminicide”)’.
Closing remarks were delivered by Yeonok Choi, Deputy Commissioner of KOSTAT, Adrián Franco, Vice President of INEGI, and Angela Me, Chief of the Research and Trend Analysis Branch of UNODC. They emphasized the importance to focus on closing data gaps related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and highlighted the role of the Conference, which brings together representatives from National Statistics Offices, policy-makers, practitioners and academics in the field of crime and criminal justice statistics.
By the end of the conference, a total of 751 participants joined the Conference, both in-person and online, representing 95 countries from all continents.
The program, recordings and other presentation materials from the Conference, will be available on the Conference website.
Further information on the CoE can be found here, Twitter @CoE_UNODC and Facebook @UNODC.CoE.
