Secondary Victimization in Sexual Offence Trials: Do the BNSS 2023's Procedural Safeguards Actually Reduce Courtroom Re-Traumatization? A Comparative Study with England and Wales' Special Measures Framework

India's shift from the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 ("BNSS") is marketed as a victim-centric overhaul for sexual offence survivors. This paper tests that claim against secondary victimization theory: the idea that the justice process itself causes psychological harm independent of the original offence. Using a doctrinal-comparative method, it weighs BNSS 2023's core safeguards, audio-video statement recording, in-camera trials, and character-evidence restrictions under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, against England and Wales' "Special Measures" regime under Part II of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, focusing on Section 28 pre-recorded cross-examination. The central argument: BNSS 2023 front-loads protection at the evidence-recording stage while leaving live cross-examination largely untouched, a structural continuity dressed up as reform. It also confronts the strongest counter-evidence available: Ministry of Justice and academic evaluations linking pre-recorded cross-examination to lower conviction rates in rape trials. It concludes that reducing courtroom re-traumatization needs a calibrated reform sequence anchored in judicial gatekeeping mechanisms like Ground Rules Hearings, not a wholesale transplant.