KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — The Malaysian government is proposing to make it less intimidating for children to testify as witnesses in court, by pushing for law reforms to enable pre-recording of their entire testimony without having to attend the trial, minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said said today.

Azalina, the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform), also said the government will be proposing law changes to stop lawyers from "badgering” children in court with improper questions.

She said these are part of three proposed amendments to the Evidence of Child Witness Act 2007 which would be tabled at the Dewan Rakyat next Monday.

Currently, this law allows a child witness’s examination-in-chief to be recorded in a video, and for that video to be used in a trial. Examination-in-chief typically refers to the part of court proceedings where the prosecution questions the witness.

"Before it was only video-taped evidence in chief, now we are changing to special hearing, for pre-recorded examination-in-chief, cross-examination, re-examination, the child does not have to attend trial. I hope all the MPs will support these amendments to the Act,” she told the media in an engagement session at Parliament here.

As for the two other proposed amendments expected to be tabled next Monday, Azalina said this includes the definition of a "child witness” to be proposed to be raised from below the age of 16, to the new age of below 18 years old.

She said the other amendment to be proposed is the prohibition of improper questions to child witnesses, saying: "So we want the court to interject.”

She said there is the challenge of defence lawyers pressing child witnesses with improper questions: "It does happen, the job of defence counsels is to defend clients so they will badger with difficult questions, and this is a challenge.”

It is understood that the proposed amendment will enable the court to have the power to stop questions that are belittling or harassing in nature to avoid the child witness from being traumatised or intimidated.

These proposed amendments to the Evidence of Child Witness Act 2007 will be tabled by the government, along with three other proposed amendments to the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017, with the overall aim of strengthening protection for children in Malaysia.

Challenges faced by children

Today, Azalina spoke about the various challenges faced by children who are victims of sexual offences, with some of these problems also contributing to under-reporting of such cases.

For example, Azalina said children who live in rural and remote areas may face difficulties in reporting sexual abuse against them, and may also not know what to do if the perpetrators live within the same community or even in the same house as them.

"Family members are supposed to be protectors, but if family members are perpetrators, where does the child go? In most situations, the child will just keep quiet because they cannot risk if the family gets broken up, divorced," she said, adding that the perpetrators of sexual abuses against children could even be the family's breadwinner, or have family ties such as their grandfather, father or uncle.

"These are the challenges, we are recognising this scenario," she said, having said that 1,448 of the 5,519 cases of sexual offences against children involved family members who are suspected to be the perpetrators.

There is also the problem where children may have to travel to the next town — where there is a specialised division available at the police station to handle sexual crimes against children — just to report the case, with Azalina asking how they could travel if no one brings them there.

Azalina also said there is a problem of "prolonged" trials and with children not updated on the new dates, adding that this would be a problem for example for children who live in rural areas and they come to court but the case gets postponed without advance notice to them.

"How is the child going to come again? As an adult, to go to court is so tiring, the process to keep coming to court. And you stay very far. In certain cases, they don't get updates or they are not even informed of the new dates. It's happening in our country, unfortunately, so we have to be honest about it," she said.

Reducing trauma for the child

Child Commissioner Farah Nini Dusuki, who was also present at the event, said a better option would be to record the child's statement straight away when they are being examined for the first time by the police.

"In Klang Valley, we have Child Interview Centre, we have trained police officers to get evidence from children. We hope that when done properly, when police are trained, it can replace evidence in court, that part is already provided in the law, I think this amendment will extend further," she said.

Azalina also said: "If a child reports to the police station and goes to the hospital and goes here and there, can you imagine how tiring it will be? That's why we want to amend the law so we can expedite, like a one-stop centre."

Unicef Malaysia's chief of child protection Saskia Blume, present at the same event, stated the benefits of having a child-friendly special hearing.

"It's really important to minimise the number of times the child has to testify because when the child has to appear many times in court, each time is a new trauma to revisit what has happened to the child.

"Also we are talking about often lengthy processes, we have to imagine the child has to go back to court, months or years after what has actually happened, so it doesn't allow the child to move on and deal with the trauma they have experienced.

"One of the areas that can also be considered is child-friendly special hearings, this will allow the child to make a statement once and including cross-examination and everything that is needed for the trial to proceed, and the child can move on with their life and they don't have to go back to court and testify again," she said.

The Unicef officer also commented on the proposal to stop improper questions to child witnesses, saying child victims of sexual offences are more likely to report the offences the more confident their families are in the court process.

"It's really important the court process is done in a child-friendly manner. We need to make adjustments to children so that they feel comfortable, and not to forget, it's also in the interests of a well-done trial, because the less intimidated the child feels, the more likely they are able to give their best evidence, to be clear in the evidence that they can provide," she said.

Apart from the push for pre-recording of a child witness's testimony to be used later in court during trial, Azalina also noted that the government's Budget 2023 has given an additional allocation for specialised courts to handle sexual offences against children. The budget for this purpose is RM3 million.

Azalina said this would help with delays in the courts' hearing and deciding of cases involving sexual offences against children, as such cases would be prolonged if they share the same courtrooms as non-specialised courts handling other types of cases.

The specialised Sessions Court for sexual offences against children are child-friendly and can be found in 14 locations nationwide, but only five of them are currently fully equipped, namely those in Putrajaya, Klang (Selangor), Kuching (Sarawak), Kota Kinabalu (Sabah) and Kuala Lumpur.

There are 40 non-specialised Sessions Court nationwide now which can be used to handle cases of sexual offences against children.