Lubaale, Emma Charlene (2025) Anonymity in judgments: safeguarding children's rights in Uganda and the Global South. International Journal of Children's Rights. ISSN 0927-5568 (Print), 1571-8182 (Online) (In Press)

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Abstract

This original study investigates the extent to which Ugandan courts protect—or fail to protect—the anonymity of children in defilement judgments intended for public access. Using a data set of 45 publicly available judgments, this research provides the first systematic empirical examination of how judicial reporting practices in Uganda expose sensitive personal information about child victims, including names, addresses, family details, and explicit descriptions of abuse. These findings reveal a consistent pattern of rights violations that contravene both national and international standards on children's privacy and dignity. This study makes a significant contribution to legal scholarship by generating new data on the intersection of judicial transparency and child protection in the Global South—an area that remains underexplored. It proposes a set of practical, context-sensitive guidelines for anonymising judgments, offering a roadmap for reform that balances open justice with the best interests of the child. The findings have wide-reaching implications for judges, legal practitioners, law enforcement, and media actors, and provide a foundation for future research and policy development on ethical judicial reporting across similar jurisdictions, thus its wider impact particularly in Global South jurisdictions.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	judgments, publication, children, anonymity, Uganda, defilement, Global South
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) K Law > K Law (General) R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics > RJ101 Child Health. Child health services
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences > School of Law and Criminology
Last Modified:	15 Sep 2025 14:54
URI:	https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/51039

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