October 8 a round table was held at Odessa State University of Internal Affairs on the topic: "Questioning children who have suffered from violence: international standards and realities of Odessa."
Fannush Tetiana, Head of Child Protection Programs of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Cornelius Nolen, OSCE Representative, Lucia Maerman-Nolte, Representative of the EUMC, Lisa Kane Brown (USA), Representative of the National Police of Ukraine, Zhanna Mishkevych, UNFPA Municipal Consultant in Odessa, Akimova Liudmyla, Chairman of the public organization "Faith, Hope, Love" Semikop Tetiana, representative of juvenile prevention Semikop Nina, expert on violence, coordinator of work with children and adolescents of the Institute of Health, Natalia Pashko, as well as the scientific and pedagogical staff and listeners for the master's degree of Odessa State University of Internal Affairs joined the discussion.
The round table began with an introductory speech by the organizers. Representatives of the university, in particular, Pavlo Bernaz and Olena Kovaleva congratulated the participants of the round table. Alla Bochevar thanked foreign experts for their support and openness to cooperation, noting that the acquisition of knowledge and experience of foreign colleagues is a powerful motivation for achieving new results in the field of protection of children's rights.
The UNICEF representative then covered in detail the interdisciplinary and interagency model of the "Barnhouse", aimed at responding to the needs of child victims and witnesses of violence. The purpose of the model is to enable each child to receive coordinated and effective care, as well as to prevent injury to the child during the pre-trial investigation.
Lisa Kane Brown, a lawyer for children's rights, touched upon the topic of cooperation between the subjects of protection of the rights of children who have suffered from violence.
In turn, the representative of the Office for Human Rights in the activities of the National Police Zhanna Mishkevych emphasized the issue of the state of ensuring the rights of children to be protected from violence in Odessa.
UNFPA Municipal Consultant in Odessa Akimova Liudmyla stressed the issue of institutionalizing a methodology, friendly to the questioning of children-victims of violence in Odessa.
Representatives of Odessa State University of Internal Affairs gave a presentation of a child-friendly room, which was recently created in the university and is already actively used.
Also, the participants of the round table, namely the Chairman of the public organization "Faith, Hope, Love" Semikop Tetiana and the representative of juvenile prevention Nina Semikop, touched upon the issue of creating child-friendly rooms for questioning in Odessa, as well as the achievements and challenges in using these rooms.
Natalia Pashko, an expert in dealing with cases of violence and coordinator of the Department for Work with Children and Adolescents at the Institute of Health Psychology, emphasized the problematic aspects of documenting a child’s testimony using a child-friendly methodology.
As a result of active interaction of the round table participants, it was decided to create a working group and develop a standard provision for a room, friendly to the questioning of children; and to develop specialists training programs for child-friendly methods of questioning.
PRU OSUIA
