Child abuse and neglect in institutional settings involving groups of perpetrators and victims. Reflections and contributions on problems relating to the assessment of eligibility to testify

Abstract

Expert and clinical experiences, literature, concerning the assessment of the suitability of minors involved in "collective" abuses, or who have simultaneously seen the presence of multiple perpetrators and/or victims, highlights a certain lack of scientific studies, reflections and contributions, specifically oriented on this sample of subjects. The overwhelming majority of technical, methodological and scientific considerations and observations aimed at evaluating the suitability of this particular population to testify, can therefore only be based - again - on studies, experien-ces and contributions of method and doctrine relating to the theme of the evaluation of suitability to testify of the individual victim. On the contrary, the cases of abuse in which a significant num-ber of minors are involved, often not bound by any kinship and which can be placed in institutional or group contexts. These cases present aspects, contents, profiles, phenomenologies, behaviors of the protagonists (authors, victims, witnesses and their families, institutions and groups in which they are inserted), completely different from cases in which individual subjects are involved, and above all, and it is the at the heart of our work, they require methods of listening, intervention, management and implementation of investigative and expert activities that are very different from the cases involving individual minors, or small groups of minors as victims and witnesses.