The Child Witness in the Courtroom

Abstract

Beginning in the 1980s, children have increasingly served as witnesses in the criminal, civil, and family courts; currently, >100 000 children appear in court each year. This statement updates the 1992 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy statement “The Child as a Witness” and the subsequent 1999 “The Child in Court: A Subject Review.” It also builds on existing AAP policy on adverse life events affecting children and resources developed to understand and address childhood trauma. The purpose of this policy statement is to provide background information on some of the legal issues involving children testifying in court, including the accuracy and psychological impact of child testimony; to provide suggestions for how pediatricians can support patients who will testify in court; and to make recommendations for policy improvements to minimize the adverse psychological consequences for child witnesses. These recommendations are, for the most part, based on studies on the psychological and physiologic consequences of children witnessing and experiencing violence, as well as appearing in court, that have emerged since the previous AAP publications on the subject. The goal is to reduce the secondary traumatization of and long-term consequences for children providing testimony about violence they have experienced or witnessed. This statement primarily addresses children appearing in court as victims of physical or sexual abuse or as witnesses of violent acts; most of the scientific literature addresses these specific situations. It may apply, in certain situations, to children required to provide testimony in custody disputes, child welfare proceedings, or immigration court. It does not address children appearing in court as offenders or as part of juvenile justice proceedings.

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Types Are Common Among Turkish Women From High Socioeconomic Status and Have Differing Effects on Child Abuse and Contentment With Life

“…When dealing with this type of violence, intramarital and extramarital sexual IPV should be investigated as different situations. There are many studies and evidence about negative outcomes of witnessing mothers’ sexual IPV in extramarital relationships, but on the other hand, “how children are affected when they witness the intramarital sexual IPV?” is still a mystery [ 40 ]. Marriage seems to be a protective factor for a child to witnessing sexual IPV and its consequences.…”

Child Sexual Abuse in Tourism and the Legal System: Lessons for Child Protection Professionals

“…For the public including the disadvantaged communities to access justice, the courts must be accessible and affordable otherwise, they will remain to be only for wealth of minority creating more dissatisfaction and hate in the society. For this disadvantaged to access the courts, particularly the children, the justice system must incorporate child friendly courts in the overall justice delivery system, otherwise, the system will cause more harm than good(FRA, 2017), as highlighted, to protect children from abuse and also increase rate of convictions without doing any harm to child survivors, the court system must be child friendly since from the start to the end of proceedings children are constantly in fear due to the fear of facing highly experienced legal defendants, fear of being harm by defendants' techniques of interrogations, embarrassment because of not answering questions well; and the trauma of having to testify repeatedly sometimes in open court (Pantell et al, 2017). For the legislations to be effective, certain practices as practiced in India, for example, must be criminalized such as inserting two fingers in women to determine habituation to sexual intercourse, male police officers instead of female interrogating sexually abused girls since it doesn't only affect the dignity of victims but it means being subjected to another abuse (Sharma, Unnikrishnan, & Sharma, 2015).…”

Eksterne faktore wat die seksueel misbruikte kind verhoed om doeltreffend in Suid-Afrikaanse howe te getuig: ’n Vlugtige oorsig

“…Spanning en angstigheid hou verband met die trauma wat as gevolg van die misbruik ervaar is, sowel as stresfaktore wat deur hofverrigtinge veroorsaak word. Die stresfaktore wat deur hofverrigtinge veroorsaak word, sluit onder andere die volgende in: vertragings van die hofproses, meervoudige ondervraging deur professionele persone en meervoudige getuienislewering, soos reeds bespreek (Pantell, 2017).…”

“…In die meeste seksuelemisbruik-sake is die kind die enigste getuie en moet die staat sterk daarop kan steun. Dit dra tot spanning by omdat daar nie ander bewyse is om die kind se getuienis te versterk nie (Pantell, 2017).…”