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‘Not consulted’ on new police database
The new police database on reported violence against women and children has come under attack by experts who say the programme lacks transparency and was designed in isolation.
Prof. Savithiri Gunasekera, an expert on the rights of women and children, said the system was incomplete. While welcoming a database that would comprehensively contain information on all complaints of violence against women and children and responsive action in each case, she said all stakeholding institutions should have been consulted prior to its establishment.
The National Action Plan to Address Sexual and Gender-based Violence, handed over to Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe in 2016, recommended a multi-pronged approach. The report was prepared with the input of all institutions including the Ministry of Women and Children, the Law and Order Ministry, the Education Ministry and the National Child Protection Association.
It is important, Prof. Gunasekera said, that the database be connected to all other stakeholding institutions for easy retrieving of information. “Here, nobody knows what is being done – not even the knowledge that such a programme exists,” she said.
The database was set up with the assistance of the Asia Foundation.
Police Children and Women Bureau (CWB) Deputy Director, Lanka Rajani Amarasena said the database would be connected via intranet to the 488 police stations that have CWB units.
She said the system would enable every police station immediate and protected access to information on cases and the offenders. It would contain investigation reports, crime reports, fingerprints and photographs.
Other institutions that deal with violence against women and children showed unawareness of the project when questioned by this paper although all agreed on the importance of having a comprehensive database for easy access and reference.
NCPA Chairperson Marini de Livera, who advocates on the importance of strict policing and a fair justice system to punish perpetrators of crime against children, said she had not been consulted. “I have not seen it yet and cannot comment on it,” she said.
CWB Deputy Director Amarasena said the project was in its fledgling stage. “It is a pilot project and we are feeding in all data from 2007,” she said.
In the past, the practice at police stations was to record complaints haphazardly and then file and keep them in the same police stations, which meant they were not available for reference elsewhere. Such a system saw most complaints being unreported, ignored or not properly investigated.
“In future, every case will get recorded and there will be easy access for information,” the police spokesman said.
Police statistics show that in the past six years (2011 to 2016), there have been 20,542 complaints from children on sexual offences committed against them, with rape and incest dominating.
In 2011, 1,463 cases of rape and incest were reported, this figure rising to 1,904 cases in 2016.
Such figures, experts say, show only the tip of the iceberg. One in four women is sexually harassed in the home, while travelling or at work before they turn 18 years.
Travel and tourism, migration for work by parents and orphaned children in the war that ravaged the country over more than 30 years have brought their share of woes, with an increasing number of children being exposed to active predators.