⚖️🤝 Quick Overview
This chapter continues victim support, covering restorative justice and special victim populations (children, women, elderly).
⚖️ Restorative Justice
Focuses on healing rather than punishment. Brings together victims, offenders, and community to repair harm.
Types of Restorative Practices:
- Victim-offender mediation - Direct dialogue
- Conferencing - Wider group discussion
- Circles - Community-based healing
- Panels - Meeting with community members
Benefits for Victims:
Answers (why it happened), voice (expressing impact), apology, empowerment, closure, higher satisfaction than traditional justice.
Concerns:
Re-traumatization risk, must be truly voluntary, power imbalances, trained facilitators needed, not for all cases.
👶 Child Victims
Developmental effects, attachment disruption, educational impact, behavioral problems, long-term consequences.
Protections: Video testimony, specialist interviewers, support persons, child-friendly spaces, age-appropriate language.
👩 Female Victims
Gendered violence: Domestic violence, sexual violence, stalking, trafficking, forced marriage.
Barriers: Shame/stigma, fear of perpetrator, economic dependence, system distrust, cultural factors.
Services: Refuges/shelters, rape crisis centers, women-only spaces, legal support, empowerment programs.