Psychosocial aspects of the Involvement of children in Judicial Proceedings

1. Psychosocial aspects of the Involvement of children in Judicial Proceedings Child Trafficking An Michels

2. 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 re-traumatisation of child witnesses • Credibility of child witnesses - appropriate questioning in Court

3. A. Children as victims of trafficking • Interconnected vulnerability factors determine risk for children: Child labour Dysfunctional family Lack of education Discrimination Poverty Abuse Disability Violence Institutionalisation

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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…)

18. 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.

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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 re-establishing safety and trust • Need for detailed explanation of courtroom procedures

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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’!

26. 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.

27. 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

28. 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

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. Emotional and social development of adolescents • Adolescence = struggle with identity and self-image • 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=198969

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. 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

36. 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.