On 6 December 2021, Katarzyna Wazynska-Finck (EUI - Law Department) succesfully defended her PhD on regulating child ad adolescent Sexuality. Wouter Vandenhole was one of the jury members.
Dr Wazynska-Finck has studied three areas where the tension between the protective and emancipatory dimensions of law is particularly significant: sexuality education, reproductive health and criminal laws on sexual assault. The doctoral thesis argues for a genuine paradigm shift, comparable to the one in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, so that children as children can be supported in the exercise of their legal capacity (to be distinguished from mental capacity as adult-like competence). It takes an original approach to vulnerability, not as a reason for disempowerment, but as a leverage for positive state obligation.
More information can be found here.