Yeah, imagine putting a 13-year-old girl on the stand, in front of reporters, judges, lawyers, potentially their rapist, and definitely their parents, and having them go blow-by-blow with a lawyer who’s already adversarial in nature and out to catch them in a lie, or confuse them, and likely has been doing this work for years.
No, this couldn’t possibly be a good reason for kids to shut the fuck up when a teacher or another kid molests them. Being a kid is already hard enough, going through a sexual assault is hard, so let’s pile a huge media spectacle (that will likely make it onto everyone at school’s social media feeds) on top of all that trauma AND force them to relive it in front of everyone for the express purpose of the defense lawyer trying to catch you in a gotcha.
Yeah, imagine putting a 13-year-old girl on the stand, in front of reporters, judges, lawyers, potentially their rapist, and definitely their parents, and having them go blow-by-blow with a lawyer who’s already adversarial in nature and out to catch them in a lie, or confuse them, and likely has been doing this work for years.
No, this couldn’t possibly be a good reason for kids to shut the fuck up when a teacher or another kid molests them. Being a kid is already hard enough, going through a sexual assault is hard, so let’s pile a huge media spectacle (that will likely make it onto everyone at school’s social media feeds) on top of all that trauma AND force them to relive it in front of everyone for the express purpose of the defense lawyer trying to catch you in a gotcha.