Standard Operating Procedures - Child-Friendly Policing
Procedures for investigations involving child victims or witnesses or child offenders
Highlights
Children constitute 45 per cent of Ghana's population. Unfortunately, many of them survive in the most difficult circumstances, both while they live with their families and when they are away from family care, living and working in the streets, in residential care or victims of child labour or trafficking. Violence and abuse of children, including sexual abuse, remains very high, with over 90 percent of children reporting having experienced physical violence, both at home and in the school environment.
Child labour and child trafficking are stubborn problems with no evidence of being reduced despite Government and civil society efforts in recent years to address these problems. Children in come contact with the law either as victims, witness and offenders. UNICEF supported Ghana Police Service to develop two sets of standards operating procedures to handle these children in a child-friendly manner. The two sets of SOPs include;
· SOP for handling child victims and witnesses
· SOP for handling children in conflict with the law
