Intervenção judicial com crianças

: a influência das fases do desenvolvimento e do tipo de questões na entrevista forense

Abstract

Child abuse crimes are theoretical raising phenomena due to its prevalence and importance in the justice system, as well as the media disclosure of the most recent cases. The rising number of cases is accompanied by the rising concern of the legal entities in identifying the child as a precious and often only source of information in the most diverse crimes. Thereby, acknowledging the child's developmental specificities, it is mandatory that the child's implication in a forensic investigation to be appropriate, avoiding it's secondary victimization which, besides being harmful to the child, can destroy and contaminate evidence. The recent years have come to recognize techniques, guidelines and protocols needed in forensic research with children, by various stakeholders throughout the process, in order to lessen the impact of the child's immersion in the judicial system. This study aims to contribute to a wider investigation that seeks to adapt the forensic interview protocol for children victims of sexual abuse, from NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development), to the Portuguese context. Facing the general objective as a translation and adaptation to a culture, we present the influence of the child's development characteristics during a forensic interview as our main objective in this investigation.

Date of Award	Oct 2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Raquel Matos (Supervisor) & Catarina Ribeiro (Supervisor)