By Wezi Tjaronda WINDHOEK Role players in the criminal justice system are trying to understand child witnesses in order to prevent losing cases where child witnesses are involved. The system is facing difficulties in dealing with child witnesses who do not answer questions, answer questions put to them strangely, are incompetent witnesses and are also traumatised by the court experience, which sometimes lead to cases being withdrawn. To understand child witnesses better, magistrates, prosecutors and court interpreters are undergoing a child law workshop on introducing the child witness, in Okahandja. The five-day workshop, offered by the Institute for Child Witness Research and Training, based in South Africa, aims at equipping the role players in the system with skills to understand trauma and psychological and other issues that affect children when they are witnesses. Deputy Justice Minister Utoni Nujoma said when he opened the workshop that if the criminal justice system is sensitive that the child is vulnerable to the circumstances he lives in and that the child can be influenced to do bad, and also that because of their physical developmental stage bad things can happen to them, it would be easy to find meaning in the context of the constitution where it seeks to ensure a dignified childhood for all children. Nujoma said a child is vulnerable and if as a victim the child is subjected to an insensitive system of justice, more harm than good would be done in the long run. “Our courts, if not guided in their processes by some deliberations as to the proportion of the crime committed by the child – to society, to the best interests of the child, and at least possible restriction on the child’s liberty – then our system may invariably end up condemning young lives to a life ever after in crime and repeated offending,” said the deputy minister. He said private lawyers should also be roped into the approach because their tedious cross-examinations may leave scars that are beyond what an ordinary courthouse could inflict. He added that the philosophy of the justice system must be geared towards achieving the outcome of having as less children incarcerated as possible. “The philosophy of restorative justice must therefore permeate throughout the criminal justice system, seeking to reconcile the offender with the rest of society,” he said. Nujoma said civil society should be engaged to assist the system to create more victim-friendly courthouses using the latest technology to ensure that their testimony is protected and extracted with dignity. Director Karen Hollely said yesterday the criminal justice system needs a paradigm shift in the way it conducts trials that involve children. Some factors that the role players should take into account when dealing with child witnesses include how to understand children, emotional effects due to trauma, child language and questions that they need to ask children. “We want to try and explain how kids communicate using their limited abilities,” said Hollely. Even though magistrates and prosecutors are people with children, she said, they are professionals that deal with child witnesses on a professional level. “They can’t speak to children because there is a huge gap between a professional and a child.” The institute conducted a workshop for the police, magistrates, social workers and prosecutors in 2000. Some of its training courses include introducing the child witness for intermediaries, introducing the child witness for the police, prosecuting the child sex offender, the judicial officer and the child witness and preparing children for court. Although the courses focus on child sex abuse, which is the most complicated, it can also be applied to victims, witnesses and juvenile offenders.