Are you an individual or non-governmental organization working on one or more field projects that attempt to prevent and combat child trafficking and exploitation using a human rights-based approach? The Human Rights Prize's CNCDH 2025 Edition is now accepting applications. To apply and find out more about this opportunity, interested candidates can click here.
About CNCDH 2025 Edition of the Human Rights Prize
Opportunity Details
Created in 1988, under the impetus of the CNCDH, the Human Rights Prize of the French Republic aims to reward field actions and projects, individual or collective, relating to the effective protection and promotion of human rights.
Theme for the 2025 edition
Every year, tens of millions of children (in the remainder of this text, a child is understood to be a person under the age of 18, as defined in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child) are victims of trafficking and exploitation, although it is not possible to precisely assess their number. According to the latest UNODC report (December 2024), the overall number of detected child victims of human trafficking and exploitation increased by 31% between 2019 and 2022, with a 38% increase recorded for girls. The number of victims is increasing as poverty, conflict, and climate change make more people vulnerable to exploitation. Children now represent 38% of detected victims.
The forms of exploitation are very diverse: children can be victims of labor exploitation in a wide range of sectors (agriculture, domestic service, catering in particular), forced to commit crimes (drug trafficking, shoplifting), forced to beg, organ trafficking, forced marriages, and recruitment as child soldiers. Sexual exploitation, particularly through prostitution, pornography, and sexual servitude, is also widespread.
Contrary to popular belief, more than half of child victims of trafficking and exploitation are victims in their own country, and no country is spared from this type of crime, whether as a country of origin, transit, destination, or because it combines several or all of these positions.
Child trafficking and exploitation are multifaceted and complex, yet always violent, phenomena that continue to spread and evolve within and across borders. No age group (including newborns, infants, adolescents), no gender, or no nationality is immune to child trafficking; it is a truly global phenomenon.
- Sponsor Organisation: CNCDH
Benefits of CNCDH 2025 Edition of the Human Rights Prize
- The five prize winners will be invited to Paris for the official ceremony. They will receive a
medal and share a total sum of 70.000 €, awarded by the CNCDH, to be used to implement
their projects. They may introduce themselves as 2025 laureates of the Human Rights Prize
of the French Republic.
- Five runners-up will be awarded a “special mention” medal by the French ambassador in their
country of origin. Runners-up will not receive any financial endowment.
CNCDH 2025 Edition of the Human Rights Prize Requirements
- The winners are selected based on the field actions they have carried out, as well as the projects they intend to develop.
- These must be part of a logic of effective protection and promotion of human rights, as well as in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the World Conference on Human Rights.
- After careful and rigorous examination, the jury selects five winners, who receive funds from the French Government to carry out their respective projects.
- Since 2000, five other candidates have been awarded a "special mention" which, although not financially endowed, attests to the quality and seriousness of the project concerned.
Application Date and Process
The application must be written in French3 and include:
- A letter of application presented and signed by the president or legal representative of the NGO concerned, or by the individual candidate;
- The application form, which is attached to this call for applications and can be downloaded from the CNCDH website: https://www.cncdh.fr/edition-2025-du-prix-desdroits-de-lhomme This form should present, in detail, the actions conducted by the association or individual.
- A presentation of the NGO (statutes, operations, etc.), where appropriate.
- The postal address and bank details (included IBAN and SWIFT Code) of the NGO or individual candidate.
- Candidates must send their complete application by the deadline of 14 September 2025 to the Secretariat-General of the CNCDH:
- CNCDH – for the attention of Cécile RIOU-BATISTA, TSA 40 720 – 20 avenue de Ségur, 75 007 PARIS – France
- or by email to: [email protected]
- Once the panel has announced the results, the 2025 Prize will be awarded in Paris by the Prime Minister, or another French minister, around 10 December 2025.
Application Deadline
14 September, 2025
Scholarship Application Portal
View details of
CNCDH 2025 Edition of the Human Rights Prize
Apply for CNCDH 2025 Edition of the Human Rights Prize
