Paola Riva Gapany

Paola Riva Gapany is a Swiss lawyer graduated from the University of Neuchatel and holding a Master degree in international and comparative law (LL.M) from the George Washington University (Washington DC, USA).

After having worked in the humanitarian, private and judiciary fields, Paola Riva Gapany is currently the Director of the International institute for the Rights of the Child (IDE) she joined in 2000 as Director’s assistant.

She is in charge of the operational aspects of the different programs run by the IDE as well as the strategic objectives of the organization. She has developed some special projects such as prevention of female genital mutilation and forced marriage in Switzerland and training program for journalists in Western Africa. She has launched the first Certificate of Adanced Studies in children’s rights for Western Africa in Dakar, with the Centre de formation judiciaire in Senegal and the University of Geneva. She currently works on the topic of juvenile justice in India, Bulgaria, Senegal and South America.
Paola Riva Gapany has presented numerous conferences about children’s rights and is the author of many publications. She has produced three movies related to Female Genital Mutilation (2007), forced marriage (2008) and Pramont (2009), educational scope of juvenile justice, along with the filmmaker Carole Roussopoulos (1945-2009).  

She is member of the Foundation Board of: Protection de l’enfance Suisse and Sarah Oberson Foundation.