Transcript Psychosocial aspects of the Involvement of children in

Psychosocial aspects of the
Involvement of children in
Judicial Proceedings
Child Trafficking
An Michels
Introduction:
Overview of the presentation
 Children as victims of trafficking
 relationship between vulnerability and consequences of
trafficking for children
 Psychological impact of trafficking on children
 Trauma and its consequences
 Psychosocial Needs of child victims
 Child victims as witnesses
 Rights of children as witnesses
 Key elements for protection, support and prevention of retraumatisation of child witnesses
 Credibility of child witnesses - appropriate questioning in Court
A. Children as victims of trafficking
Interconnected vulnerability factors
determine risk for children:
Dysfunctional
family
Child labour
Lack of
education
Discrimination
Abuse
Violence
Poverty
Disability
Institutionalisation
Combination and interaction of factors
 Increased risk to become a victim of trafficking,
in its different forms
 But also increased impact of trafficking
experience
 few coping mechanisms, increased victimisation
 decreases chances for successful reintegration
 trauma can be reinforced by previous traumatic
experiences
 Important to understand vulnerability:
To identify psychosocial needs of children
To tailor protective measures for child witnesses
To prevent re-trafficking
Violence and trauma as a vulnerability
factor
Many child victims have history of abuse
before ‘recruitment’:
They often lack skills to cope with stress, to
confront pressure and violence, to be assertive.
They often lack skills to distinguish between
genuine caring and abusive relationships.
They often lack skills to protect themselves from
a repetition of the abuse.
B.
Psychological impact of trafficking
on children
Understanding impact is crucial
To be able to decide on appropriate protective
and re-integrative measures
To understand reactions of child victims and the
difficulties they might experience as witnesses
To judge the credibility of the testimony of child
witnesses
 Trafficking experience has very often a severe
impact on physical and psychological well-being
of the child.
Because of impact of poor living conditions, forced
labour, sexual exploitation, violence and abuse.
Because of separation from family and/or attachment
figures, deception.
Because of stigmatisation and difficulty to reintegrate.
Psychological impact
Trauma as a consequence of trafficking
Child victims, especially victims of sexual
exploitation, go very often through a series of
traumatic events that:
Are perceived as life threatening
Make the child feel powerless, extremely anxious and
out of control
 Traumatic events are so overwhelming
That the normal coping mechanisms of the child fail
That information processing (perception, memorisation
and recalling of events) is disrupted
 A ‘traumatic memory’ consists of images, sensations,
fragments
 A ‘normal memory’ consists mainly of a story of what
happened
 Previous traumatic experiences reinforce trauma
of trafficking
Signs of trauma: development of
behavioural, cognitive and emotional
problems
Depending on developmental stage:
 Age 0-5:
increased crying, being frightened, clinginess, failure to
grow, nightmares, sleeplessness
 Age 6-12:
Aggressive or sexualised play, afraid to sleep,
nightmares, bed wetting, refusing to talk, regression
(acting like a baby), headaches, stomach aches
 Age 13-19:
Refusing to talk about feelings, fantasies of revenge,
depression, eating disorders
Other psychological problems that might
occur as a result of trafficking
 Problems with attachment, loss of basic trust
Can block reintegration in the family and community
 Aggressive behaviour, disturbance of moral
development and value system, substance
abuse
Can lead to delinquent behaviour
 Feelings of shame and guilt, low self-esteem
Can hamper future development, also impacts on
collaboration with law enforcement officials
Development of survival and defence
mechanisms
 Memory suppression
Forgetting the emotional stress experienced during
traumatic events is a way to keep the pain away
Importance of triggers
 Dissociation
‘as if it was someone else’, apathy, indifference
 Denial
Minimising or denying the reality of the events

Survival mechanisms can impact on
involvement of child victim as witness
What do children need to recover
from trafficking?
 Basic conditions for recovery
Safety: physical and psychological safety are a crucial
condition to start process of recovery
 need for individual assessment of the child before
decisions concerning his future are made
 Need for protective measures
Time: trauma does not heal spontaneously, even with
intensive support a child will need time to recover
 Need for access to multidisciplinary and intensive support
adapted to the child’s level of development
Respect for the child and its rights
 Need to hear child views, understanding of the
psychological impact of trafficking
C. Child victims as witnesses
“Child victims are particularly vulnerable and
need special protection, assistance and support
appropriate to their age, level of maturity and
unique needs in order to prevent further
hardship and trauma that may result from their
participation in the criminal justice process”
UN guidelines on Justice in Matters involving Child
Victims and Witnesses of Crime
UN (ECOSOC) guidelines on Justice in Matters
involving Child Victims and Witnesses of Crime
 Right to be treated with dignity and compassion
 Taking into account children’s personal situation and
immediate needs, age, gender, level of maturity, wishes and
feelings…
 All interactions should be conducted in a child-sensitive and
empathic manner in a suitable environment.
 Right to be protected from discrimination
 Implies taking account of the different nature of particular
offences, such as sexual assault
 Implies that age should not be a barrier to the child’s right to
be treated as a capable witness
 Right to be informed
 Of availability of health, psychological and social services
 Of progress and disposition of a case
 Of availability of protective measures
 Right to express views and concerns and to be heard
 Ensure that children are enabled to express freely, and in
their own manner, their views and concerns regarding their
involvement in the justice process, the manner in which they
prefer to provide testimony, their safety…
 Ensure that children are involved in the decision to be a
witness and have time and information to take this decision
 Right to effective assistance
 Implies support commencing at the initial report and
continuing until these services are no longer required
Right to privacy
Measures should be taken to exclude public
and media from the courtroom
Right to safety
Measures to protect the child from risk before,
during and after the justice process
In case of intimidation, threats or harm,
appropriate conditions should be put in place to
ensure safety of child (avoiding contact with
accused, restraining orders…)
Right to special preventive measures
Special strategies are required for particularly
vulnerable children and in cases where there
are risks of further victimisation to child victims,
taking into account the nature of the
victimisation, like abuse, sexual exploitation and
trafficking.
 Right to be protected from justice process
hardship
Accompanying the child throughout his or her
involvement in the justice process
Providing certainty about the process
Using child-sensitive procedures, interview rooms
designed for children, interdisciplinary services for child
victims, recesses during testimony
Limiting the number of interviews
Avoiding unnecessary contacts with the alleged
perpetrator, his/her defence team
Questioning of children out of sight of the accused
Use of testimonial aids in court, control of questioning
Key elements for protection, support and
prevention of re-traumatisation
 Protection is about safety and creating a feeling
of safety
By giving as much control as possible over the process
to the child
 Hearing the child’s views
By informing the child about the process
 Need for good preparation
By avoiding unnecessary stress
 Use of videolink, pre-taped testimony
 Avoiding unnecessary contact with the accused
 Guardian or support officer should accompany child
Support in pre-trial, trial and post trial
phase
 Pre-trial
Support should be coordinated and start upon
identification of child as a victim
Appointment of a guardian
An assessment of the psychosocial status of child
(including history and possible future solutions)
should be made of every child, prior to involvement
in court proceedings
Recovery time before taking a decision on involvement
in judicial process
Psychosocial support should be focused on reestablishing safety and trust
Need for detailed explanation of courtroom procedures
 Trial phase
Guardian or support person should accompany child
through all stages of proceedings
Minimise number of interviews, only interviews by
trained staff, building up rapport with child
Testifying can be empowering for a child if carried out in
a way adapted to child’s level of development
Testifying about traumatic events in a stressful
environment can cause an exacerbation of symptoms of
trauma.
Need for developmentally appropriate questioning in
court.
 Post-trial
Child should be informed about outcome of
proceedings.
Child should be involved in all decisions concerning
its future, also concerning potential reintegration in
family (not always the best option!).
Recommendations from assessment should be
followed up.
Appropriate assistance for children with special
needs should be available as long as possible.
Focus on normalisation.
Developmentally appropriate questions
for child witnesses
 Questioning children in court, in a way that is
adapted to their level of development, is crucial
in order to ensure a credible testimony and to
avoid retraumatisation.
inappropriate questioning confuses children and makes
them unable to communicate accurately what
happened.
When children are questioned properly, most of them
can be very effective witnesses.
Judges play a critical role in monitoring the questioning.
Need to understand the development of a
child in three domains
linguistic, cognitive and emotional
Need to understand impact of trauma on
development of a child
Trauma can affect specific fields of
development
Can cause a delay in the general linguistic,
cognitive and emotional development!
Child that is stressed or upset might
‘regress’!
Middle Childhood (Age 7 – 10)
Linguistic development:
Language ‘sounds’ adult-like but the child does
not have the vocabulary of adults
Difficulties understanding legal terms
Misinterpreting questions involving negatives
Difficulties with complex and long sentences:
their short term memory may not be developed
enough to allow them to remember the
beginning of a long sentence.
Need to keep questions short.
 Cognitive development
Child cannot apply logical processes to ideas
 E.g. “what happens when people tell lies?” is more difficult
than “What if you told a lie?”
 E.g. “what does it imply to depart from the truth?”
Child cannot accurately estimate distances or sizes
 E.g. “How wide was the window in the house?”
 E.g. “How wide would the window be in comparison with
the screen you see here in front of you?”
Child cannot compare periods of time
 E.g. “ Did you live on street X three or four years ago?
Child uses numbers often in a very rough way
Emotional development
Child might become emotional or shy if
it is upset, answers become shorter
Avoid direct questions about the child
body or embarrassing questions
Adolescence (Age 11 – 18)
Up to age 14, adolescents may still have
many of the cognitive capacities of school
aged children.
Even after age 14, their level of
development is not equal to that of adults.
It continues to be important to keep the
stage of development in mind when
questioning an older adolescent witness.
Linguistic development of Adolescents
Continued development during this stage is
dependent on education!
Without education adolescents enter adulthood
at a school aged level of linguistic development.
Vocabulary continues to grow, still difficulties
with legal jargon.
Still difficulties with complex forms of negation
and the passive voice.
Cognitive development of Adolescents
 Adolescents learn to think abstractly and understand
generalisations.
 They can think about hypothetical situations, about their
own thinking processes and about motives of other
people.
 They can think about and fully understand ethics.
 In later adolescence, children can accurately estimate
times, distances and physical dimensions.
 However, they take less note of dates and time than
adults! This should not impact on their credibility as a
witness.
Emotional and social development of
adolescents
 Adolescence = struggle with identity and selfimage
 Adolescents are easy to ‘destabilise’
 Confusing and embarrassing questions might
lead to negative reactions, refusal to answer or
to an emotional outburst
 “Developmentally Appropriate Questions for Child
witnesses (1999), 25 Queen’s L.J. p 251 – 302
Prof. Schuman, Bala, Lee.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=198
969
Suggestions
Include an ‘introductory phase’
Start with questions about neutral events to make the
child feel more comfortable and to assess its level of
development and capacity to understand questions
and to remember events.
• E.g. “tell me about your first day at school/birthday…”
Insert questions about the oath in this introduction
Build up questions, starting with simple ones
Avoid long questions, negatives and passive
voice
Teach the child to tell the judge when questions
are unclear.
Difference between not being a credible
witness – lying – not answering accurately
because the question is not adapted to the
child’s developmental level!
Adults should adapt to children, not the
other way around.
Conclusion
Trafficking has a major impact on
children’s psychological development and
future
These traumatic experiences are often
reinforced by a combination of vulnerability
factors that also decrease chances of
successful reintegration
Child victims have the need and the right
to receive intensive support and protection
Children can be effective and credible
witnesses if:
support and protection are provided
the court procedures and questioning are
adapted to their stage of development.