Daily Sun gets a MAD from Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) for indentifying a two year old child who witnessed her mother being killed.

In “Girl (2) sees mum being killed” (Daily Sun, 07/12/2010, p. 7) Daily Sun named the child who had in fact told her family what had happened to her mother. Daily Sun also named the child’s mother and aunt, and photographs of them were published alongside the article.

Section 154 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Act states that: “No person shall publish in any manner whatever any information which reveals or may reveal the identity of… a witness at criminal proceedings who is under the age of eighteen years”.

The article made clear that despite the fact that this young child did not fully understand that her mother was now dead, she was “able to tell her family and the police what happened to her mum” and “was very helpful in indentifying” the alleged killer. This two year old child appears to be the primary witness in this case, and as a child witness her identity should never be revealed to the public.

Daily Sun protected the identity of the alleged murderer, who was also a minor, however it failed to afford the same legal protection to the child witness.

In addition to the legal obligation to protect this child’s identity, there is also an ethical one. This child has been through a very traumatic experience. Identifying her in the press violates her right to privacy.

She is portrayed as a tragic and innocent hero in this story. However this fails take into account the burden that growing up and dealing with a trauma that has been made public, can have on a child. If a child is too young to give fully informed consent to being identified, then media has an obligation to err on the side of caution, and to minimise the potential harm publishing this story could have on those involved.