Statistics show that in Poland seven out of ten domestic violence cases are discontinued and the penal code does not classify domestic aggression as a crime. In order to punish the perpetrator, his act needs to be “adjusted” to the existing paragraphs, and this is where the problem arises. There was a brawl. Someone is screaming. Someone is scared, but what exactly happened? The prosecutor is out of his mind. Process – dragging. The perpetrator, instead of undergoing a psychological and re-education program, takes revenge on the victim.
In order to help future lawyers understand the individual mechanisms of domestic violence and better protect the people who experience it, the HumanDoc Foundation creates a modern e-learning course that will be available free of charge to both law students and anyone interested in this subject.
“In order to prevent mistakes in domestic violence cases, prosecutors and judges must be trained.”
Adam Bodnar
Our project: “Education on the mechanisms of domestic violence for law students” aims to broaden the knowledge of future lawyers, prosecutors and judges on this issue. The e-learning course prepared by us aims to eliminate the myths and stereotypes that the legal community, unfortunately, still repeats, thus leading to secondary victimization and, paradoxically, imposing more severe penalties on the victims of violence than on its perpetrators.
The training will be created in cooperation with specialists from the District Bar Council in Opole and the Norwegian Stiftelsen Alternativ Til Vold, who have been working with the HumanDoc Foundation for years in numerous projects on introducing systemic solutions for counteracting domestic violence (including training psychologists during the lockdown in 2020. ).
The certified course will consist of several modules, in which will be presented, inter alia, the following topics:
– Stereotypes about domestic violence. Statistics show that the legal community is still not sensitive enough to this problem. On the one hand, he sees it, on the other, he treats sexual and physical violence as a marginal issue of interest only to women’s organizations.
–Effectiveness of educational and correction programs. The data analysis shows that most of the perpetrators participating in such programs become aware of their aggression, learn to control it and do not return to the path of crime. Despite this, Polish judges blatantly rarely refer them to it.
– Case study: the perspective of people experiencing violence when faced with the Polish justice system. Victims are often discouraged from submitting notifications of committing a crime, and their evidence motions are not included in the cases. The lack of them encourages the court to recognize the minor social harmfulness of the act committed by the accused and to discontinue the proceedings.
Thanks to the modern e-learning offered by the HumanDoc Foundation, this situation can be changed. The reorganization of the justice environment will contribute to better identification and more professional treatment of victims of domestic violence.
The project “Education on the mechanisms of domestic violence for law students” is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway from the EEA and Norwegian Funds under the Active Citizens Fund – Regional.
Donator
Read more www.aktywniobywatele-regionalny.org.pl
Partnerzy
