Empowerment of the child victim through the alleviation of fear and stress; helping the  victim cope with the legal process.

Today in Israel, thousands of children are victims of crime. The Child Victim Assistance Program assists children and youth victimized by crime, or by witnessing crime, to cope with its damaging impact on them, as well as with their involuntary involvement in the criminal judicial process.  (See the example below.)

In Israel, the child victim may initiate the criminal justice process and may testify, however he or she is not considered a party in the process.  The proceedings are stressful, the legal jargon is often complicated, the children do not receive information and they do not have the rights to express their position on their own. This program responds to these special hardships. This response is both unique and important; as it is not provided by any other governmental or voluntary body.       

From the moment a police complaint is filed, the child is placed at the epicenter of a process whose stages, procedures, and language are wholly unfamiliar to him. He is excluded from the all of the decision-making processes and no inquiry is made of his opinions. Often he does not even understand the reasons on which decisions are based.

At the time he is called to testify, the minor is placed in seemingly threatening and frightening position. Some of those around him are wearing black robes, others are handcuffed, the perpetrator is near at hand, the language spoken is unintelligible, and the atmosphere is one of pressure and severity.

Throughout the proceedings, the minor does not know what their anticipated duration is, who is making the decisions, or what decisions have been made. Most importantly, there is no single, central, designated office or official whose responsibility it is to respond to the questions, requests, and complaints of the child and the parents.

In order to overcome these difficulties, tens of volunteers, mostly law students, have been recruited and trained to serve as personal companions to the child victims.  The companion provides assistance, aide and support by providing the child and his or her family with information about the proceedings, answers to any questions that they may have, referrals to counseling services, the arrangement of pretrial meetings between the prosecutor and victim, a tour of the courtroom and accompaniment in court on the day of the trial.  The child has the companion's telephone number for emotional support or questions that arise at any time - day or night.

Since the initiation of the program, hundreds of children have benefited from the services. The program receives full cooperation from the police and they have asked that the program be expanded to cover the entire country. In addition, the program has received praise from families, prosecutors and professionals working with child victims and has served as a lever for extensive public activism on the issue of children victimized by crime, their welfare, and their rights.