The Voice of the Child project, launched in February 2024, focused on helping fulfil the EU strategy on the Rights of the Child, with a special focus on advancing child-friendly justice.
In the context of the project, three video recordings of real cases of children speaking with judges were produced, along with a manual for using these recordings effectively. The aim of the project is to strengthen the training of both sitting judges and judges in training, as for the first time, there are materials that offer in-depth insight into how judges communicate with children in judicial settings.
On 26-27 March in Zeist, the Netherlands, the Voice of the Child project concluded, bringing together over 100 participants, including judges, court staff, and judicial trainers from 36 EJTN member institutions, law faculty professors and specialists in children’s rights and family justice. At the final conference, the three documentaries filmed in Bulgaria, Italy and Belgium, and the manual developed as learning material to accompany the films premiered.
EJTN was represented at the event by Secretary General, Judge Ingrid Derveaux, who noted:
“You never know if the decision you make is the right one. This is the complexity; you can do your best in different matters — that is what these films show.”
The learning materials will be made available to EJTN members in due course.
The Voice of the Child project was a collaboration between the Center for International Cooperation (CILC), Golden Monkey Enterprises (GME), the Training and Study Centre for the Judiciary of the Netherlands (SSR), the Belgian Judicial Training Institute (IGO/IFJ), the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN), the Scuola Superiore della Magistratura (SSM), the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the Universities of Leiden, Trento and Plovdiv, and the courts of Trento, Varna and Antwerp. We thank all partners for this productive and important cooperation!
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