Dnipro, Lviv planning to open Barnahus child advocacy centers

Barnahus child advocacy centers will be established in Dnipro and Lviv until the end of the current year.

Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Kateryna Pavlichenko said this in an interview with Ukrinform.

"As of July of this year, 12 such centers were already operational in various regions of Ukraine, including the Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, Kyiv, Kropyvnytskyi, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Ternopil, Chernivtsi, Poltava, Sumy, Lutsk, and Cherkasy. Dnipro and Lviv are planning to join the Barnahus network in 2024," she said.

Since the beginning of 2024, 135 child victims and 60 child witnesses have been interviewed at Ukrainian Barnahus centers, the minister said.

According to her, the significance of the procedural actions conducted at these centers is that all the specialists required for criminal proceedings are present in one location.

"That is, to prevent repeated trauma to the child, all the necessary specialists gather once to perform a series of procedural actions. This approach has the advantage of minimizing the impact on the child, thus avoiding the necessity for the child to recount the same information repeatedly to investigators and prosecutors," Pavlichenko explained.

She informed that all the specialists working at Barnahus undergo appropriate training.

"That is, juvenile police officers, investigators, prosecutors and others undergo this training and know exactly how to work with a child during procedural actions in the Barnahus Center. This is the experience of European countries, and it makes it possible to create a safer and friendlier environment for children and increase the effectiveness of investigating crimes against minors," said the Deputy Interior Minister.

As reported, on June 1, the Prosecutor General's Office announced that 12 centers based on the Barnahus model have been established in Ukraine.

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