✍ Scribed by Frank Lindblad; Anna Kaldal
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Evaluation of alleged sexual abuse at day-care centres usually has to be based mainly on child statements about their own victimisation. This study points at other possible sources of information. Thus, the child may give contributions to the investigative procedure also as a witness of abuse of other children, as a participator of group interaction related to abuse and as a receiver of a disclosure about abuse from another child. Data are presented from a case where the suspect had confessed. A quarter of the children at the daycare centre had given information about other children's exposure. For more than half of the children, there were witness statements that reflected what these particular children might have been exposed to. Context and statement characteristics seemed to make an evaluation of some of these statements possible. Information about interaction between children and about disclosures between children was strikingly scarce which was probably due to the lack of questions from parents and investigators in these areas. Witness statements from children about other children's exposure to abuse stand out as an interesting complementary source of information in investigations of abuse at day-care centres and may also provide a basis for interpretations at a group level.
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