Partners unite for a child-friendly justice approach for child victims and witnesses of violence

YEREVAN – UNICEF and partners announced about the launch of the first child-friendly safe space in Yerevan that will provide multidisciplinary and multi-agency protection for child victims of violence from secondary victimization and child-friendly justice approaches, where children could be interviewed and examined for forensic purposes, comprehensively assessed and receive crisis intervention services from appropriate professionals. Simply said, it was established to serve the best interests of child victims and to ensure due process of law.

This new child-friendly safe space is modeled following and adapting the international Barnahus approach to child friendly justice that unites under one roof law enforcement, criminal justice, child protection services and medical and mental health workers to cooperate and assess together the situation of the child. The Barnahus approach has shown to avoid secondary victimization of victims and increase the effectiveness of the justice process, by creating child-friendly environment for investigative actions, limiting number of interviews carried out by many agencies in different locations, excluding contact between victim and alleged offender at all times, taking measures to protect the privacy, identity and image of child victims and helping them to rebuild.

This new model of work was launched by UNICEF in partnership with the Fund for Armenian Relief Child Protection Center with the financial support of the European Union. It was made possible with strong commitment and leadership from the Investigative Committee, Ministries of Labor and Social Affairs, Justice, and Health, as well as the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Armenia.

The “Safe corner” in Yerevan includes a room that has a child-friendly atmosphere with age-appropriate toys, reading and activities, designed to make children feel comfortable before and during the interviews. In order to spare the child from having to tell his or her story on several occasions and to several individuals, the forensic interview conducted by investigators and certified psychologists can be observed from a different room by justice professionals and videotaped to be possibly used in court. Once in the room, children will soon be able to undergo also medical examination. The multidisciplinary team of specialists, including the psychologist, a social worker and a doctor will provide crisis intervention and also determine the need for short or long term therapeutic and other support services.

In the past years, UNICEF supported amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code for children to be interviewed only with the support of certified forensic interviewer psychologists and development of secondary legislation. In addition, UNICEF supported the Ministry of Justice in the development of training modules and subsequent training and certification of 53 psychologists.

UNICEF works with partners to also establish a Barnahus-like safe space in the premises of Child and Family Support Centre / Crisis Centre in Kapan, Syunik marz, this June, hoping that in due time this approach will become a full integral part of the national justice and child protection systems, making sure that all children who are victims of violence, regardless the form of violence, have equal access to child-friendly justice and are provided with a multi-disciplinary response that helps them rebuild their life.