News
Child guardian playing politics, 40,000 innocents await justice
Two people were convicted this week of cruelty to a child and molesting a child.
A three year jail term was imposed on a former school principal in Kurunegala for thoroughly beating a student, while a school van driver was sentenced to seven years imprisonment by the Colombo High Court for molesting a preschool child.
More suspects were arrested for crimes against children last week. Among the suspects was a 48 year old man from Eppawala who molested his neighbour’s four year old child, and a father of a toddler who force-fed his son alcohol in Anuradhapura. Another suspect attempted to sell a 15-day old newborn in Ragama.
But the employees union of the country’s premier child protection authority fears that 30,000 to 40,000 complaints on various forms of child abuse over the years are yet to be solved.
The president of the National Child Protection Authority employees union, Mahendra Dassanayake said cases are piling up.
“Most of the grave crimes are reported to police, but the NCPA receives the highest number of complaints on child abuse and other issues related to children,” he said.
Annually, close to 10,000 complaints are reported to the authority. Last year alone, there were 9,014 cases with 2,144 complaints on cruelty to children, 501 on sexual harassment, 340 on rape, 309 on grave sexual abuse, 269 on child labour. Most reports came from Colombo, Gampaha, Kurunegala, Ratnapura, Kalutara and Galle districts.
Other complaints include procuring to beg (312 complaints), kidnapping of lawful guardianship (145), abduction (42), trafficking (116), soliciting a child (10), unnatural offence (1), gross indecency (5), neglect of children (390), sale of tobacco (3), violation of the compulsory education law (1,324), domestic violence (80), and juvenile delinquency (492).
There were more than 2,000 miscellaneous complaints.
The union has written to President Maithripala Sirisena, seeking immediate intervention on issues in the authority.
“The NCPA should be ideally an independent authority. Initially, it was attached to the Presidential Secretariat. After being taken over by the Ministry of Women’s and Child Affairs there is a lot of political involvement, as well as appointments given to those not qualified in handling issues related to children. The frequent change of chairpersons is also affecting the efficiency of the NCPA,” Mr Dassanayake complained.
A field officer himself, Mr Dassanayake said the NCPA gets complaints through the 1929 hotline as well as through field officers who are in contact with divisional secretaries and grama sevakas. However, he said there is a need for guidelines by child experts for field officers to follow when a complaint is made through the hotline.
“There is a need for a budget plan. The NCPA ends spends millions on awareness campaigns like street shows but not for immediate response to complaints. Some complaints come from remote villages. The investigations require several trips. We have requested an increase in the allowance based on the complaint. Complaints should be handled within two weeks. The longer the delay the more a child will be exposed to victimisation,” he said.
Mr Dassnayake said there has been a delay in appointing field officers.
“The appointments of 116 qualified persons who were selected after an examination are yet to be finalised. They have been waiting for about eight months,” he said.
Several attempts made to contact the recently-appointed chairman, H.M. Abhayaratne failed.
Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekare said those who harm children could expect prison sentences of between two to 10 years.
Last year, 88 cases of cruelty to children and 43 cases of sexual exploitation of children were reported to police. There have been 98 complains in the first five months.