Children as Witnesses in Courts of Law (Essay Sample)

Name
Course
Subject
Instructor
Date of submission
Children Should Not Be Used As Witnesses In Courts Of Law
The modern society has been featured with increasing cases of child abuse and neglects that ever before, a trend that has seen children increasingly being admitted as witnesses in both criminal and juvenile proceedings. Unfortunately, most of these cases end up unreported and this makes it difficult to have reliable statistics of the prevalence of child admission as witnesses. Other than being witnesses of domestic violence and child abuse cases in which they play a role of both a witness and a victim, children find themselves as witnesses in a variety of other cases including road accidents and playground injuries (Marsil & Warren, 2002). However, children witnesses have raised widespread concern particularly in legal sphere where questions have been raised regarding their veracity and testimonial competency especially in high profile cases such as felonious murder and sexual abuse. The fact that children frequently give uncorroborated testimonies in courts, one can rightfully argue that they should not be us