E-PROTECT

Enhancing the PROtection of Children – vicTims of crime

Protection of children is a specific EU objective because of their fragility and vulnerability. It is known that children need specific protection, which means providing them with an environment in which they are safe from any situation possibly exposing them to violence. Since acts of crimes against children occur in various forms and different situations, the platform will provide a huge amount of information regarding protection of child victims of crimes and their respective rights in terms of support and compensations. It will assume the role of a one-stop shop considering that the platform would provide all kinds of information about EU, international and MS legal framework, protection of crime, support systems, prevention policies, children rights, legal aid, direct contact to European and national administrative institutions in charge. The E-PROTECT platform will serve as a basis for the building of a strong transnational network of multidisciplinary professionals, specialised in working with children – victims of crime.

The core idea of the project is to develop, deploy and maintain a transnational online platform in English, Bulgarian, German, Italian, Romanian and Greek, which is adaptive and browser independent, providing comparative legal and practical advice to the variety of professionals working with children-victims of crime (lawyers, judges, prosecutors, law enforcement agencies, psychologist, social workers, etc.) on reinforcing the application of Directive 2012/29/EU and Directive 2004/80/EC. Additionally, building the E-PROTECT platform’s content, the partnership will elaborate methodology aimed at individualised needs assessment of the child victims of crime. However, it should be noted that the project does not envisage direct work with children.

Expected results

Improved understanding on child rights established by Directive 2012/29/EU
Increased application of child victims of crime individual needs assessment methodologies
Established panEuropean network of multidisciplinary professionals working with child victims of crime

Activities

Development of an online platform aimed to inspire a multidisciplinary network of professionals
Research on the transposition of the Victims’ Directive including
- In-depth reviews of transposition legislations
- and studies on the transposition of the individual assessment methodologies in accordance with article 24 of the directive.
Training activities, including the organisation of policy briefing, seminars, MeetUps, virtual events & an international conference in Vienna
Development of an online platform aimed to inspire a multidisciplinary network of professionals
Elaboration of policy guidelines