Catherine Przyborska: What does your law firm do?
Monika Horna-Cieślak: I run a law firm that deals only with matters concerning children, young people and young people. I took care of children who were hurt, children who experienced physical, psychological, or sexual violence. Sexual force is my main specialty, but I besides dealt with issues specified as student rights, children's rights with neurodiversity, peer violence. Now, of course, I'm gonna gotta suspend the firm.
You're co-author of a high-profile law on the protection of minors, called the Kamilka Act of Czestochowa.
Among another things, due to the fact that I am besides co-author of the Anti-violence Act 1.0, anti-violence 2.0 and specified a law that changed the way children were represented in criminal proceedings.
What are the most crucial changes to these laws?
Anti-violence law 1.0 and 2.0 changes the reasoning of the situation of those who experience violence. The bill introduced an immediate order to leave the premises by the perpetrator of the violence, which means that it is no longer the victim of force who must flee the house, children must leave their rooms, their toys, change their surroundings. Now the perpetrator of the force is to leave the apartment, the place where the force took place.
What about the Kamilka bill? Let us remind that the political will for this bill came from the shock caused by the crime, the abuse and death of eight-year-old Kamil of Czestochowa in May 2023. This one, although the victims of home force are 30 children a year.
The Kamilka Act introduces a stronger proceeding of children in kid welfare proceedings, an analysis of serious and fatal cases of kid abuse, standards of protection of minors in institutions, imposes an work to introduce a national strategy against kid force and a second national strategy: countering sexual force against children. The second was adopted by the government on 17 October and is waiting for implementation. Its procedures must be developed by circumstantial facilities by 14 February 2024.
One of the problems of the Polish childcare strategy is its fragmentaryness. Institutions that may have an insight into the situation of the child: school, PO, pedagogy or MOPS do not cooperate. The Kamilka Act carries any changes in this respect?
Of course, helping a kid should always be interdisciplinary, and a individual who helps a kid should never be a lonely island. We should have common support, in the team, in another institutions. And in fact it is that there is fragmentation in Poland. Thanks to the Kamilka Act, for the first time in Polish history, the National Coordinator for Children's Protection is appointed, the individual liable for gathering these services in 1 place to talk to each other. Of course, for now at the state level – that is, that is, that ministries meet, as well as spiritual unions, NGOs, representatives of, for example, judicial curators. And to make a policy together to prevent harm to children, and to strengthen the strategy of kid protection in Poland.
Will the coordinator handle this task himself?
This coordinator will not act alone due to the fact that the delegates of these institutions besides operate in the Children's Protection squad established in Poland for the first time in history. We have all this guaranteed by law in the Kamilka Act. I, on the another hand, have this experience and I would very much like to – and I will ask for it under the rights of the Ombudsman – to strengthen the local anti-violence strategy against children. So not only at this government level people meet and talk about how to strengthen the strategy at state level, but in regions, in their cities and districts people meet and talk about how to improve children's safety.
I realize that dreams must be supported by something, and social workers, intellectual and pedagogical counselors do not flow, their wages are simply besides low. I have the feeling that these institutions request to be co-financed for real change.
I'm watching it, too, and I feel precisely the same way. I see how my friends, who are large specialists, psychologists, only to a limited degree decide to work in the public service, precisely due to the fact that wages are insufficient. But it's besides crucial to take care of employees. due to the fact that remember, this occupation is very difficult. I have done it myself for many years, and I know how much support is needed, specified as supervision, emotional support, intellectual support and, of course, adequate remuneration. It's a very liable job.
Working with people, with human harm, entering someone's house, mindfulness, work – this is besides your experience. How are you doing?
I've dealt with very dramatic and hard cases, and I don't get support at systemic level, which is evidently a bad thing. But I care about it myself. I'm supervisional, I'm after therapy to realize myself, to realize my emotions. But I besides work very hard with my body: I usage relaxation techniques, mindfulness techniques, autogenic training Schultz, etc. It's part of the job. In addition to having professional experience, cognition of procedures or knowing of the psyche of the people we work with, we request to have a healthy emotional strategy of our own, so that we can take care of ourselves.
Should supervisions or therapy be guaranteed by the employer, since these are the things belonging to the workshop, or is it their case how workers cope with difficult, sometimes traumatic work experiences? Therapy is not cheap, and you can wait long, and not always the first therapist you encounter is the right one.
I would very much like specified supervisions to be available not only to social workers who, at legal level, have them guaranteed, but to another professions: teachers, nurses. And to have a multidimensional aspect, due to the fact that remember that working with trauma... It's not even that we're antacid, our emotions without this supervision, without support, freeze. It's a natural reaction to trauma, to drama, to situations that don't fit in your head. In order to survive, we gotta frost ourselves in a way. all specified frost stays in the body. Not just in your emotions, in your head. It is very crucial that this support is systemic as part of a package of specified a profession.
In addition to those cases already started, what else are you planning, now as a kid rights spokesperson, to take over?
First of all, the reconstruction of RPD institutions. It can't be an office preaching the views of a organization or my views. The aim of the Ombudsman for the Rights of the kid is to talk in the name and interest of children. So you gotta talk to your children, know what they do, what they need, you gotta meet them.
As an attorney, erstwhile I was investigating a child's case, I met him and talked to him, unless it was against the child's welfare. But my primary mission now is advocacy, being the voice of children, strengthening their voice, which is frequently denied them. This goal has in my opinion been forgotten, but there are expectations that I will advocate for a circumstantial group of children, and I will advocate for all child.
That's what I wanted to ask you. I missed the RPD in Michałów very much erstwhile we asked what was happening to children in the forest – symbolically, but in general in the debate about the humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border. But besides in the debate about the situation of exile children from Ukraine in the overflowing Polish school. Will the situation of these children interest you? Or first, our Polish?
A kid rights officer advocates all child. all kid who is in Poland needs protection needs support. In the legislature I talked about the situation of children on the Polish-Belarusian border with Senator Maciej Żywna. Both exile children and those surviving in the region who have experienced a state of emergency, they observe military activity all day. Until now, the RPD has not been curious in what intellectual condition they are in or request anything. We're already set to go there, meet these kids, perceive to them.
Members of these children's families sometimes service in the Border Guard, schools organized the collective sending of cards with the slogan "mura Behind the Uniform". You want to give them a cognitive dissonance? Put a wedge in the family?
My occupation as an RPD is not to put a wedge in the family, but to guarantee that children are decently cared for, feel safe. RPD talks to all kid to know how it feels and what it needs and to make certain that children themselves know RPD. The Ombudsman for the Rights of the kid is the voice of all children, collects their opinions, talks with them and transmits that politicians and politicians then take certain actions. due to the fact that a kid rights officer can't regulation anyone out. He can't do that, he can't meet someone, he can't meet someone, or any of the information he gets, if he's comfortable, he'll use, and any he doesn't like, he'll reject.
I have been provoking this wedge into the family, of course, due to the fact that we are talking about a good moment, and yet you have not erstwhile utilized the word "family". In fresh years, there has been almost no conversation about children without mentioning the household and rights of parents. What about family?
Anyone who takes care of a kid knows that a kid is not a lonely island. That there are adults around the kid and that the kid is simply a individual who needs support. household is very important. But remember that situations are different and the kid needs wise adults who are liable for the kid who see the child’s needs. And situations are different.
Does that mean that adults around a kid are different, not necessarily smart and attentive to their needs?
We know that situations are different, but it's not like we're putting a kid in a confrontation with a household or a household in a confrontation with a child. I have clear priorities: erstwhile individual gets hurt, we just respond to that harm due to the fact that that's the most crucial thing. And I besides respond to the harm of a kid in the family.
All right, but here's the problem. Poland, erstwhile ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the kid in 1991, added a declaration that the Republic of Poland considers that the implementation of the rights set out in the Convention concerning its subjectivity, freedom of thought, conscience, religion, is carried out with respect to parental authority, in accordance with Polish customs and traditions concerning the place of the kid in the household and outside the family. So first the rights of the family, then the child.
As a lawyer, I would look more at how the Constitution of the Republic of Poland is constructed. There is an emphasis on parental power, but it is not that this is the end of regulations in our Polish regulations. For example, we have Article 72, which states that it is an work to perceive to the kid and, where possible, to take his opinion into account.
What I have been dealing with as a lawyer for years is simply a frequent ignorance of the law in this area. It's not like kids in this country don't have a voice. They have and, moreover, there are legal regulations, constitutional regulations, but besides in the Code of household and Care, which clearly state that erstwhile making crucial decisions, parents have the work of the kid to listen, to know his opinion. So I have the feeling that this is not even a discussion about what legal regulations look like, but what the implementation of legal regulations look like. For example, the Kamilka of Czestochowa Act, which we discussed, strengthens the child’s subjectivity in this regard.
In this respect, I myself was a very strong social activist erstwhile I was inactive working at the Foundation We give the Children the Force, where I was liable for the first campaigns on how household judges and household matters would perceive to children. We've been doing social campaigns, publications. A lot has changed in this area since 2015, 2016. And as I say, it's not a problem with regulations, it's a problem with social awareness, with inappropriate practice.
The change is likely to require training besides among lawyers, among judges.
Yes, exactly.
Meanwhile, they are held training of judges with alleged parental alienation, which sometimes consequence in the court establishing that the parent's right to contact the kid even erstwhile the kid does not want that contact.
Training should be carried out by organisations that are guided by the welfare of the child. The kid has the right to contact the parent, but has no obligation. I myself led very dramatic and very hard matters that afraid the reality of children. respect for a child's opinion is crucial. And as a spokeswoman for the rights of the child, I am a spokesperson for not adults, but children. I know cases erstwhile the kid was obstructed by contact with the parent or the kid was experiencing a false image of 1 of the parents. I besides know cases where a kid has experienced force and for his improvement it was inappropriate to keep in contact with his parent. I have very much experience in this area and I have seen a lot.
What to do with Resocialisation Act, which uses the word "demoralisation" in a very broad and vague way and allows for highly strict disciplinary measures?
The Law on support and rehabilitation of minors, for which the Ministry of Justice is responsible, entered into force on 1 September 2022. This discussion should now be resumed. I follow very closely the voice of prof. Konopczyński, who talks about how the rehabilitation of children in Poland should look. At the moment, children with problems or conflicts are isolated alternatively than integrated into the environment. The paradigm of reasoning about how we should approach young people who have any difficulty in functioning should simply change. Legal changes are needed and discussion is needed.
What does your experience suggest? Is the kid who has a problem truly the origin of the problem, or does it uncover the problem of the community, e.g. class or family? More frequently this kid is “bad” or the situation he responds to?
That's right. I frequently see that this is not about solving the problem, but uncovering the guilty 1 who turns out to be a child.
Weaker to adults or groups.
The situation of children who have any difficulties with the law – that is how it looks at the level of facts – is complex. That's a very crucial question. It is crucial to look at the situation of a kid as widely as possible: what his household situation, school situation, whether he is experiencing peer violence, whether he has been given assistance and support at the right time. I utilized to do this kind of research, due to the fact that I'm besides a investigator about giving custody orders in a situation of danger to the child's welfare, which is erstwhile something bad happened. It was very clear from them that erstwhile the child's case went to court, it required repair of his full environment. What happened was that the kid did not have support and assistance in basic aspects, there was no adequate support at all in science. So we can't sign that the baby did something incorrect and the case is closed. Very frequently the kid shows that something bad is happening around.
Recent studies According to the Foundation's report, we give the children strength have shown that the most common form of force children experience is intellectual violence. intellectual violence, I suppose, is rather hard in the eyes of the law. Sometimes it shows traces, for example, in the form of self-inflicted injuries, but it seems hard to prove it?
In fact, the easiest way to prove what you see is physical violence, frequently sexual violence, due to the fact that it besides leaves traces. We just see a bruise, any scratches, scars, and in specified situations, the easiest to react.
What about intellectual violence?
It leaves traces most frequently in the behaviour of children and in the child. For example, if a kid hears that he is simply a moron or a fool, or is threatened, that he will, for example, go to a child's home, these are the phrases that the kid absorbs like a sponge, especially if he hears them from people who love them, who are crucial to him, due to the fact that on this basis he builds his identity, the kind of individual he thinks he is. If we do not give children this strengthening, feeling that they are important, needed, in the future, but besides in this childhood they will be weaker, they will have little religion in themselves, which will translate into their life choices, challenges, relationships.
And the another thing. I think there's quite a few work ahead of me in the educational field, so we can all respond erstwhile we hear individual addressing the child, violating his dignity, insulting them. I would besides like to do specified work in the direction of changing mentality, what we even think about children, how we have educational methods and how we treat children. To be honest, this has always been the hardest part of my work. It's mentality and misconception.
What do you mean?
For example, there is specified a belief that teenagers only lie. In the courtroom, people could come to me and ask me why I represent these children, due to the fact that they're just lying. We besides have small cognition of the functioning of children harmed. We frequently imagine that a kid will always be depressed, locked in a closet, mostly not wanting to live. And children harmed frequently function usually in our community. They go to school, get grades. Sometimes this baby is just the best in the class and always wants the best rating. He wants a red belt due to the fact that he's afraid of what's gonna happen to him at home. And everyone's happy that this baby is so good at learning. These children, in my opinion, are at the highest hazard of non-recognition of violence.
A word to say goodbye the current Ombudsman? Was his deficiency of activity more painful?
Every kid is important.
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Monika Horna-Cieślak – Since December 2023, the Spokeswoman of the Rights of the Child, an lawyer specialising in children's rights, the president of the Children's Rights Section at the Warsaw ORA, co-author of the Kamilka Act.
