Empathetic listening in the judicial assessment of the testimony of children and adolescents who are victims of domestic sexual abuse.

Abstract

This article aims to account for the critical knots in the judicial assessment of the testimony of children and adolescents who are victims of sexual abuse as a crime that originates and reproduces in the family context.
In relation to this, it proposes to ponder empathic listening as a principle for the professional practice of justice operators and protection of the rights of children and adolescents.
In this sense, it tries to promote a critical reading regarding the right to be heard in judicial proceedings from a victim-centered approach and a childhood approach in order to temper secondary victimization.
For this, the phases that make up the criminal process and the role played by the Social Worker in each of these judicial instances are exposed.