NGCOBO J psychological well-being of the child complainant as the original abusive act was. Indeed, High Courts have come to accept that the giving of evidence in cases involving sexual offences exposes complainants “to further trauma possibly as severe as the trauma caused by the crime.”99 It is precisely this secondary trauma that section 170A(1) seeks to prevent. [109] Having regard to this, it must be accepted that a child complainant in a sexual offence who testifies without the assistance of an intermediary faces a high risk of exposure to undue mental stress or suffering. The object of section 170A(1) read with section 170A(3) is precisely to prevent this risk of exposure. It does this by making provision for the child to testify through the intermediary away from the accused and in a child-friendly room. Thus construed, the problem becomes one of implementation as the cases to which our attention is drawn demonstrate. Implementation of section 170A(1) [110] Contrary to the reasoning of the High Court and the submissions of the amici, the subsection does not require that the child first be exposed to undue mental stress or suffering before the provision may be invoked. As I have held above, the object of the subsection is to prevent the child from being exposed to undue mental stress or suffering as a result of testifying in court. A construction of the subsection that requires the child to be exposed to undue mental stress or suffering first, before an intermediary may be appointed, is therefore inimical to the objectives of the both 99 Above n 89 at 187F-G; K v The Regional Court Magistrate NO and Others 1996 (1) SACR 434 (E) at 442C443F; See also S v Manqaba 2005 (2) SACR 489 (W) at paras 30-1. 58