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Child Witness Research Paper

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The Child Witness And The Proceedings Before The International Criminal Court Uluslararası Ceza Mahkemesi Önünde Çocuk Tanıklar Abstract: Children suffer harm by becoming victims of international crimes during armed conflict. Together with the United Nations Security Council, both under their own mandate, the International Criminal Court tries to protect the child victims of armed conflict under international law. As a result of children’s presence in the conflict area, child victims often become witnesses of international crimes. The involvement of those children as witnesses in international criminal proceedings is a new development. The procedural involvement of the child witness in international criminal proceedings brings along challenges, …show more content…

With the establishment of international criminal courts and tribunals, but also with the setting up of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, children have started to participate in the proceedings mainly as witnesses. The testimony of children might be of vital importance for the effectiveness of the prosecutions and important for the conviction of those who carried out those crimes against children. This may in particular be the case when the child victim is the only witness (Economic and Social Council [ECOSOC] Resolution 2005/20; Parmar and al, 2010: IX). The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict also states that challenges for the judicial systems might have emerged with the child witness (Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General [OSRS-G] for Children and Armed Conflict Working Paper N°3, 2011: 14). The evidence given by children might contain a double-faced challenge: the protection of the child witness during the proceeding and the insurance of trustworthy and reliable evidence given by those young witnesses (Sanin and Stirnemann, 2006:

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