Child witness testimonies began in 1895, where the supreme court of the United States allowed a 5.5-year child to testify. As a result, more than 1000 testify in courts per year. The practice has been adopted by other countries' courts ( Shonkoff et al., 2016). Most courts use the child witness in the crimes based on sexual abuses. The child witnesses procedure has been enhanced to reduce the stresses and the traumas that affect the children who appear in courts. Consequently, the courts have developed accommodation services for the children before appearing in courts to avoid victimization and influences. This paper argues that children should be allowed to testify in courts.
Child memories are high for strangers, especially during abuse. Children's mind is sufficient because the developmental stage of this part of the brain is adequate during their development. When a child is abused, the memory of the child quickly remembers the face, and the language used by the stranger ( Shonkoff et al., 2016). Children easily associate faces and recall the events of the crime, unlike the elderly. Assessing the memories of child maltreatment is easy, as reflected on the negative emotional laden.
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Child behavior has high suggestibility, especially in the occurrence of crimes. The degree of child's encoding, storage, retrieval, and reporting can easily be influenced by the many psychological and social forces ( O'Connor, 2018 ). Although children can easily be induced to testify to the events that did not happen, children can hardly deny the occurrence of some event that occurred. Additionally, children merely intend to mislead others, especially during court occurrences. Children are likely, to tell the truth than older members. The ability to detect any form of lying among the children is natural than among the older members. Therefore, children should be used in court testimonies.
References
Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., Siegel, B. S., Dobbins, M. I., Earls, M. F., McGuinn, L., ... & Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption, and Dependent Care. (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics , 129 (1), e232-e246.
O'Connor, C. (2018). Children Should Be Unseen, But Heard: Child Testimony in Family Law Proceedings.
