This child-friendly courtroom with crayons and colouring books is helping kids testify against abusers

A courtroom with crayons, pink walls and no witness box is allowing trafficked children in Goa to testify without fear.

Police are banned from wearing uniforms and judges do not wear robes in the child-friendly court in western India.

Judges believe the model, which is being rolled out across the country, is providing a vital safe space for those who have suffered horrific abuse.

“Children testify if they are given time and space,” Vandana Tendulkar, judge of the Goa Children’s Court told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“There are no black robes allowed in my court and even the policemen cannot enter in uniform.

“Judges have to almost think like a child to be able to get to the bottom of these cases,” she said.

“When I make a six-year-old victim of abuse sit next to me and depose, she feels reassured.”

She added that many judges have crayons and colouring books to help children “settle down”.

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“The special court gives the child space to be fearless and a better shot at justice,” she said.

According to data, 43 percent of the 9,127 trafficking victims in India in 2015 were below the age of 18.

Many cases did not end in convictions due to witness intimidation. Many did not even reach court.

In 2015, 14,913 cases were registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, from 8,904 in 2014. These included minors forced into the sex trade or kept as slaves.

Out of 406 completed trial cases in 2014, there were convictions in only 100 cases.

In 2014, a judge, Mohit S Shah, chief justice of Bombay high court, argued that more than half of children in India have faced sexual abuse.