On Wednesday, March 2nd, a support provider on the 116 006 line at the National Call Center for Victims of Crime. Maja Vdović, gave a lecture on Witnesses in Criminal proceedings as a part of a series of online lectures organized by the team of the National Call Center for Victims of Crime. The lecture was held via the Zoom platform and was broadcast live on the Facebook page of the Victim and Witness Support Service Croatia. The lecture was attended by 93 participants, including 3 volunteers from the National Call Center.
At the beginning of the lecture, the lecturer emphasized the scope of the NPC and the technical details related to participation in the lecture, and explained why she decided to address and present this specific topic. The lecture covered the legal framework related to witnesses of crimes, the emotions that witnesses can feel and what it means to be a witness, why being a witness is a traumatic experience, what are the reactions that can occur after witnessing a crime, why witnesses sometimes don’t report crimes and how to help them.
The conclusion of the lecture was that being a witness is extremely complex and that more attention should be paid to this topic, both in practical and research terms.
At the end of the lecture, participants were able to join the discussion and ask questions.
