• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.523-541
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• 2016

Both the child's and defendant's testimonies play crucial roles in the court's ruling of a child abuse case. Thus, empirical studies examining a child's truthful report, that is, disclosure, of his or her experience and recantation of the disclosure have manifold practical implications. The objective of the present study was to examine how easily a child recants his or her testimony after witnessing and disclosing an adult engaging in a small mistake. Furthermore, this study examined whether the child's age and emotional support from his or her caregiver predict the recantation of the child's testimony. Children of age 5-8 years played with dolls with the experimenter and witnessed the experimenter breaking the doll mask. The experimenter asked the children to keep it a secret. Then the children had the first memory interview, during which the interviewer induced the child to disclose the incident. Based on the treatment conditions, some children were provided supportive feedback while other received unsupportive feedback from their primary caregivers (mother) regarding the disclosure, then were interviewed for the second time. First, the author of this study examined whether the children would recant their disclosure (whether they would deny the incident after telling the truth of about what happened to the doll), and also examined the features of the child's voluntary reports, that is, the degree of their honesty. The findings of the experiment indicated that there were age-specific differences in the frequency of recantation, meaning that older children (8-9-year-olds) showed a stronger tendency to maintain their recantation in the second interview than relatively younger children (6-7-year-olds). Furthermore, children who received supportive responses from their mothers regarding the disclosure demonstrated more honest reports compared to those who received unsupportive responses from their mothers. The findings of this study assist the understanding of the effects of social-motivational factors on the process of children disclosing the truth when voluntarily recalling a negative incident that they had experienced and provide practical implications in legal aspects.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Child Welfare
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• no.55
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• pp.87-111
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• 2016

This study aimed to examine how video-recorded hearsay statements are taken in trial with regard to testimony of children less than the age of 13 in terms of children's rights, and to assess policy implications for the purpose of improving the current system. This study analyzed the precedents in accordance with their facts and contents. The analysis of the contents dealt with the main issues of trials concerning the sexual violence of children less than the age of 13. Specifically, This study selected precedents dealing with video-recorded hearsay statements, which are children's indirect statement, as core legal issues; examined the credibility(probative power) and admissibility of video-recorded statements; and prepared systemic alternatives in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the international standards for the protection of children's rights. As a result, this study proposed creating and utilizing indicators to assess evidence admissibility and the credibility of video-recoded statements in trial, thus reducing judgement through judges' discretion. Also proposed are new regulations with regard to cross-examination coverage of the hearsay statement of a child in a sexual violence trial of concerning children less than the age of 13. This study suggests an improvement in legal policies, based given that children's rights are more vulnerable than those of adults in trial. Nevertheless, this study is limited in that it selected and reviewed only among precedents that are in the public record.