The Justice Ministry said on Thursday that it would ask for a report on the plight of a three-year-old child witness who was too traumatised to testify against her alleged rapist in an open court earlier this year.
The ministry said it was ”shocked and dismayed” by the acquittal of the little girl’s alleged assailant. She was the prosecution’s only witness.
”It is shocking that with all the measures we have in place to protect vulnerable witnesses, a three-year-old child is exposed to this kind of insensitivity and secondary victimisation,” Deputy Justice Minister, Cheryl Gillwald said in a statement.
She said there had been negligence on the part of criminal justice officials.
It was standard procedure in sexual offence trials that intermediaries be used to assist witnesses.
”This is the case even in courts where there are no specialised facilities for victims, such as separate witness rooms and closed circuit television.”
She said this measure was intended to prevent ”secondary victimisation” and to ensure better prosecution, as well as protect vulnerable witnesses like women and children.
The story of the girl’s plight was carried in newspapers on Thursday.
According to Beeld she was allegedly raped in January by a 24-year-old family friend who had taken her to a shop to buy sweets.
The man was acquitted in the Temba Magistrate’s Court in Hammanskraal north of Pretoria in May after the girl was unable to testify.
The prosecutor in the case did not call for medical evidence in the case because he was convinced that the child would be able to testify.
According to the senior prosecutor, closed circuit television was installed in 1997 in the court. The camera was damaged by vandals in 1998 and some of the television sets were stolen. A new system was installed in 2001, but in the magistrate’s office, instead of the witness room.
The action group, Men and Women Against Child Abuse, said in reaction to the incident that it only proved that the justice system was punishing victims instead of protecting them.
Spokesperson Miranda Friedman said only the public shaming of court personnel would suffice.
”Why is the justice system punishing the victims they are entrusted to protect?” Friedman asked.
She said it was ”criminal” that the magistrate and prosecutor in the case did not stop the proceedings when they realised that the child was too traumatised to testify. They had the authority, she added.
”I feel that the minister and the deputy minister of justice, who are saying that we are improving the justice system for victims, are lying to the public.
”In reality we are still seeing too many cases where children, who were victims of serious sexual offences, are forced to testify in open courts without intermediaries.”
Friedman said her organisation would start publishing a column later this year, naming court personnel who had failed to protect the rights of victims, especially children. – Sapa