Welcome to Child Justice Project Office

⇒Building up on the system of child justice requires the access to a child friendly space in court and the police that respond to the special need of children. Accordingly, CJPO has pioneered in introducing child friendly benches which have the characteristics of being informal; use experts promoting child friendly approaches, avail waiting and cooling rooms for children. Moreover, a closed circuit system (CCTV system) and one side mirror has been installed in the child friendly bench to take testimonies of children without the children confronting with the suspect and supported by a social worker. To date, more than 79 child friendly benches have been established at federal and regional courts, with the support of the CJPO.

⇒The Child Legal Protection Center (CLPC) was established in October, 2012 with the objective to guarantee children’s access to free legal aid service. Following “the best interest of the child” principle. CLPC has been cognizant to integrate psychosocial services with in its legal aid for the purpose of making its response to children comprehensive and holistic. To realize the approach, CLPC has established coordination mechanism for which MOU had been signed among 40 governments and non-governmental in 2023. This coordinated approach resulted in the following commendable achievements in accessing free legal aid and psychosocial services to children as its serves their best interest.

⇒To date, CLPC has provided free legal aid services to nearly 50,000. The legal aid provided to the children involves legal services, legal counseling, legal representation and writing of courts pleadings and applications. The court representation services are for children with civil issues (family issues, custody issues, maintenance issues, paternity, inheritance issues, compensation issues etc.) and children in conflicting with the law.

⇒DNA examination has been another support that the CLPC has been facilitating for cases of children whose filiation is disputed and there is no sufficient evidence to proof paternity. The majority of these types of cases who have undergone the testing have ended up with the conformation that the man who denied his paternity is the father. The service has benefited the children realized their right to know and be carried for by parents. Moreover, the DNA testing has been serving as the system of evidence gathering for convincing perpetrators in case of rape where the survivor conceived and gave birth to child.

 

⇒It’s the contemporary practice to integrate alternative dispute resolution (ADR) with in the legal aid service framework. This approaches helps the children be raised relatively peaceful family environment, being crucial to their development. This approach has further been recognized by the newly adopted National Child Policy. CJPO has been providing family mediation services by engaging mediators. Family benches of courts are referring divorce cases to CLPC for facilitating amicable resolution through mediation.

 

⇒Children coming for legal aid service usually face multiple psychosocial complications that require interventions. For instance, children in families undergoing divorce proceedings can experience emotional distress, malnutrition, disruption of educations, physical illness, homelessness and etc. which requires timely intervention. Even if they succeed to present their case before the court of law and get decision in their favor, the children might probably experience irreversible damage while the care providers litigate their case in court. Children are the victims of violence are another category coming to the CLPC for support. These children usually are referred from police for facilitating psychosocial support like counseling while the investigating is in the process. In some cases, the psychosocial need arising out of legal issue might be more detrimental to the child requiring interventions. Therefore, a temporary psychosocial support that addresses the immediate need of children highly contribute to serving the best interest of children while administering justice for them.

 

⇒CJPO has exerted reasonable effort to disseminate information about child right and child protection through the use of different media. It used to broadcast “chilot” TV program its equivalent meaning being “court proceeding”) to create awareness as to how courts are entertaining cases of children. For the children as well, consecutive TV program had been transmitted via “Ethiopis” in EBS TV. It’s a puppet show which is formatted to entertain and educate the children. Through this program, CJPO had been transmitted programs and messages that equip the children with the information of how the children protect them from abuse and violence.
⇒CJPO has exerted reasonable effort to disseminate information about child right and child protection through the use of different media. It used to broadcast “chilot” TV program its equivalent meaning being “court proceeding”) to create awareness as to how courts are entertaining cases of children. For the children as well, consecutive TV program had been transmitted via “Ethiopis” in EBS TV. It’s a puppet show which is formatted to entertain and educate the children. Through this program, CJPO had been transmitted programs and messages that equip the children with the information of how the children protect them from abuse and violence.
⇒In a nutshell, though CJPO has exerted commendable effort in raising awareness of the public and of partners: there is a need to scale up initiatives in this regard by strengthening partnership with the media and other likeminded agencies.

 

⇒Various training workshops have been organized for different professionals that are part of the justice system. To date, more than 2000 justice and non-justice professionals have trained on issue of child rights, child development, counseling, communication with children, investigation of child abuse, etc.
⇒Children have also been among the beneficiaries of the training program of the CJPO. Training workshop in school, for 100 gender club members, from different school of Addis Ababa had been organized in collaboration with the Addis Ababa education bureau. The training mainly focused on providing basic knowledge and skills to the children about the legal framework in child protection:- the definition, and type of abuse, symptom and cause of abuse and available remedies.