The Council of Europe HELP course on Child-friendly justice was officially launched in Tbilisi, Georgia in partnership with the Chief Prosecutors Office and the Georgian Bar Association.

Giorgi Gabitashvili, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of Georgia, stated in his opening speech that child-friendly justice is one of the key priorities of his office and affirmed his commitment to work with the Council of Europe to further strengthen the capacities of prosecutors.

Elda Moreno, Head of the Sports Values and Children’s Rights Department , made an engaging presentation on Child-friendly justice stressing the value of the Guidelines of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on CFJ.

The HELP Programme and its course on Child-friendly Justice - developed jointly with the CoE Children’s Rights Division, the staff of the CoE Secretary’s General Special Representative on Migration and Refugees and UNHCR – was presented by Eva Pastrana, Head of HELP Unit.

Below keynote speakers noted legislative progress regarding the protection of children but stressed the need to improve implementation and practices. Results of the monitoring conducted by the Public Defender’s Office as well as assistance by UNICEF are most valuable.

• Maia Gedevanishvili, Head of the Children’s Rights Centre from the Office of the Public Defender of Georgia.
• Natia Merebashvili, Head of the Juvenile Justice Department, Chief Prosecutor’s Office.
• Maka Peradze, Deputy Director of the Department of Human Rights Protection, Ministry of Internal Affairs.
• Tamar Alania, Tbilisi Appeals Court Judge, Council of Europe Expert.
• Tsira Gamtsemlidze, Lawyer of Monitoring and Analysis Division, Legal Aid Service.
• Giorgi Tiuzarashvili, Lawyer, Georgian Bar Association.
• Teona Kuchava, Child Protection Officer, UNICEF.

The primary purpose of the HELP course is to strengthen and harmonise the knowledge of the relevant ECHR and other European standards on child-friendly justice across the Council of Europe member States. This free on-line course is primarily addressed to legal professionals and other professionals working for and with children. The course is composed of the following modules:

1. Introduction
2. Child-friendly Justice
3. Non-judicial proceedings
4. General elements
5. Interaction with children in judicial system: main challenges
6. Interdisciplinarity
7. Deprivation of liberty
8. Violence against children
9. Migration and asylum

Apart from the adaptation of the on-line course to the Georgian legal context, the Council of Europe will pilot the on-line training with 45 lawyers and prosecutors and supports the involvement of two national tutors assigned by the Chief Prosecutor’s Office (Salome Shengelia, Head of the Human Rights Unit) and the Georgian Bar Association (Irakli Kandashvili, member of the GBA executive council) to supervise the distance learning.

The launch was organised as part of the Council of Europe project “Responding to child sexual exploitation and abuse in Georgia, phase I”, implemented in the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia (2016-2019). The project aims at strengthening the capacity of authorities and professionals to prevent and protect children from sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and other forms of violence, and to promote child-friendly practices in Georgia.

The European Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) is the only pan-European Network of national training institutions for judges, prosecutors and lawyers in the 47 member states of the Council of Europe. It is an e-learning platform with free on-line courses on human rights and a human rights training methodology for legal professionals.

The CFJ course is accessible at http://help.elearning.ext.coe.int in English, Ukrainian and Serbian. Upon the completion of the tutored course, it will be accessible in Georgian by end 2018.