Saturday, 9 August 2014 00:00
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CHILD trafficking is a real and growing problem in Sri Lanka. This week the incident of a mother selling her six month of infant to another woman for just Rs. 30,000 made headlines and highlighted the deepening crisis for children in Sri Lanka.
Much has been written and said about child abuse in Sri Lanka. By Government estimates, a horrifying 20 children are abused in some form or another each day in Sri Lanka. Child trafficking is merely a part of this larger problem and requires similar answers.
While recent research has yielded information on the nature of child trafficking, little is known about its magnitude. The International Labor Organization’s 2002 estimation of 1.2 million children being trafficked each year remains the reference for many international reports. The exact number of children trafficked locally is even harder to pin down with the public only being reminded through sporadic news articles.
Development partners, governments and non-governmental organisations need to work on all aspects of anti-trafficking responses – prevention, protection and prosecution – and support evidence-based research to strengthen interventions.
To reduce vulnerabilities that make children susceptible to trafficking, governments need to strengthen laws, policies and services including legislative review and reforms, establishing minimum labour standards, and support access to education. Stakeholders also need to work with communities to change norms and practices that exacerbate children’s vulnerabilities to trafficking.
One such major need is implementing law changes. While Sri Lanka’s law can slap sentences including jail sentences up to 20 years and fines, the long delays in prosecuting abuse cases make this largely ineffectual. There are also strong social concerns such as stigma and protection issues. When crimes such as child selling become normalised though policy stagnation, it can be carried out with impunity.
Undoubtedly, the largest problem is poverty, which is the root cause of most abuse including trafficking. This alone will befuddle any Government. Sri Lanka, according to recent reports, is considering a foster care system where children from vulnerable backgrounds can be placed in homes, but such a move would require significant resources as well as a reliable system of checks and balances. Existing oversights where security, transparency and judicial measures are bottlenecked do not provide a positive background for setting up a foster care system in Sri Lanka and unless properly monitored could exacerbate issues such as child trafficking.
Protecting trafficked children requires timely victim identification, placing them in safe environment, providing them with social services, healthcare, psychosocial support, and reintegration with family and community, if it is proven to be in their best interest.
Governments and other organisations must support training of professionals working with children including social workers, health workers, police and border officials to effectively deal with trafficking. Additionally, governments must set standards in dealing with child trafficking such as developing and training responsible personnel on child friendly interviewing techniques.
All this requires a huge change of attitude at policy level. With no lack of predators out there, it is important to focus on people who want to genuinely adopt children and give them a better life while weeding out the abusers. Even one child trafficked is one too many but the country is yet to see a comprehensive policy on ending abuse.
