Saturday, 1 March 2014 07:53
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THE horrific incident of the sole of a child’s foot being burned by a hot iron while she was illegally working as a housemaid in her teacher’s home underscores the terrible plight of children in Sri Lanka.
According to Child Development and Women’s Affairs Minister Tissa Karalliyadda, 7,418 children were victimised by various types of abuse in 2012. This makes for a staggering 20 children abused each day in this country. Of those incidents, the highest number – 1,174 – had been reported from the Colombo District. It was also noted that out of all such incidents reported last year, 3,800 were punishable offences under the Penal Code.
According to Government records read out by the Minister, 313 children had been employed as child labourers, while 1,054 had been identified as those without guardianship and protection. There were 944 children who were not attending schools, while 1,307 had been victims of domestic violence and 196 had been sexually abused.
Never known for making apt answers, the Minister had noted that the Government was responding to the crisis by reducing the number of mothers seeking employment overseas. Even though a popular belief is that migrant workers create social problems, when comparing Sri Lankan child abuse with statistics from other migrant-oriented countries such as the Philippines, there is a clear indication that deeper issues are triggering the devastatingly high numbers here. Moreover, there was no mention by the Minister about steps being taken to fast-track rehabilitation and empower the justice system to aid victims.
Even once the offence is discovered and the responsible parties arrested, children often have no one to take care of them and are shuttled to State or non-State run juvenile centres. They then have to undergo more heartbreak and fear as a sluggish legal system mires them in years of litigation – sometimes for as long as a decade. Often, during this time, the perpetrators roam free.
Statistics show that every day, three to five children are raped in Sri Lanka. Police statistics show the total number of child rapes in 2011 as 1,463; the figure jumped to 1,759 cases in 2012, according to a Parliamentary report. Police records also give a total of just over 2,000 sexual offenses against children, besides rape, in 2011; child-molestation cases in 2012 soared to over 5,000, according to Parliamentary figures. The total number of all crimes against children — which besides sex crimes include crimes of violence, abduction, trafficking and other offenses — increased by a dramatic 64% between 2011 and 2012.
These are mind-numbing numbers. Rampant abuse is completely swept into the shadows and while the Government has taken some steps such as establishing two courts only for child abuse cases, estimates indicate around 10,000 cases are pending at all courts around the island.
Caught in a vicious cycle of injustice, ever-growing impunity, stigma and judicial inefficiency, thousands of children are part of a tragic lost generation in Sri Lanka.
