Using innovation to overcome barriers
From the interviews with family judges, we observed that some of them are innovative in introducing techniques to secure the right to be heard. These include bringing emotional support dogs to the courthouse to help children feel safe expressing themselves, inviting them to draw their feelings, or having the judge use a puppet to communicate with them. Family judges mentioned in these interviews that these techniques require support from psychologists, psychiatrics, and/or social workers trained to understand and interpret the language and expressions of this population. Hence, securing the right of the child to be heard demands expertise, an innovative mind-set, and teamwork.
The research
We are researchers from the Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Maastricht University-United Nations University (the Netherlands), conducting empirical research to understand the right of the child to be heard in view of their evolving capacities. Specifically, we will examine how children comprehend their right to be heard and their right to participate in the legal process.
To conduct our research, we will visit a shelter in the province of Buenos Aires that cares for adolescents who have experienced abuse or abandonment by their caregivers. During these visits, we will collect empirical evidence on how adolescents perceive their right to be heard.
We will use different participatory research methods. These methods proved to be effective in engaging children in research because they utilize games, storytelling, and other formats that are part of the vocabulary children are familiar with. To collect data, we organized two sets of activities for adolescents at the shelter, with three months apart. For the first activity, adolescents are invited to create something that represents their experience with the justice system. They are free to decide what they want to create, and we will provide materials for their work, such as paper and pencils for those interested in drawing or cameras for creating TikTok content.
For the second activity, we will ask adolescents at the shelter to write the script of a play named “Who hears me.” We will request them to create different scenes, addressing who acknowledged them before entering the shelter, who supported them upon arrival, who currently listens to them, and who they wish to be heard by. The adolescents will decide the characters in the play and the setting. The activity will conclude with a short face-to-face interview where we will ask the participants to provide recommendations for changes to the justice system based on their experiences.
