The project ENSURE will improve communication with child victims with disabilities in the criminal justice system by integrating intermediaries, support persons, and special representatives and aligns with the EU’s objectives to enhance child protection systems and ensure access to justice for children with disabilities.
The project’s overall objective is to enhance access to justice for child victims with disabilities by improving coordination and cooperation among specialized roles. It targets criminal justice professionals, protection professionals, judicial authorities, and EU policymakers, ultimately benefiting disabled children in the justice system. Specific objectives include developing the roles of intermediaries, enhancing the skills of legal professionals, improving multidisciplinary cooperation, and raising awareness of the importance of specialized support for disabled child victims.
Intermediaries are specialized independent professionals who support the courts in overcoming communication barriers. They constitute a professional category that originated in the United Kingdom and is now embedded in international human rights standards.
They are not support persons per se, but their role consists of facilitating effective communication and ensuring that the person with disabilities and justice actors understand each other’s questions and information.
According to the research Diagnosis of People with Disabilities in Romania, conducted by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank in 2021, „courts in Romania are, for the most part, physically, informationally, and communicationally inaccessible. Among the Romanian courts (district courts, tribunals, and courts of appeal), none are fully physically accessible for persons with disabilities. Informational accessibility — meaning the way in which information about the courts, including websites, is made accessible through the use of alternative and augmentative means such as Braille, pictograms, easy-to-read language, and audio-video formats — is almost non-existent in 99% of courts. Effective protection of rights is essential to ensuring equal access to justice. Portal Just — the Romanian court website containing information on cases and hearings — is not accessible. At the same time, 75% of courts are not communicationally accessible, meaning they do not offer sign language interpretation services and do not appoint staff to assist persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities.”
By implementing these activities, the ENSURE project aims to make legal proceedings more accessible, inclusive, and supportive for children with disabilities, fostering systemic change in child protection and justice systems across Europe.
The main activities include:
• Disability advisory board engaging experts with disabilities to guide project activities and ensure inclusive approaches
• National reports examining the role of experts, consultants, and interpreters in justice systems, focusing on their impact on procedural accommodations for children
• International synthesis report
• Model Rules-based processes for special representatives, intermediaries, and support persons, adapted to national contexts through National Rules-based processes
• Internal online workshop
• Training pack and curriculum
• Three national workshops conducted in person in Austria, Romania, and Serbia to equip professionals with practical skills for working with intermediaries
• International conference
• Two public webinars
• Policy brief
• International expert panel
By implementing these activities, the ENSURE project aims to make legal proceedings more accessible, inclusive, and supportive for children with disabilities, fostering systemic change in child protection and justice systems across Europe.
The project is financed between March 2025 and February 2027 through the European Union`s CERV-2024-DAPHNE programme.
Project Partners working with Terre des Hommes (TdH) – Romania:
