News
In-school support boost to head off alarming rise in child abuse
The National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) is speedily setting up school protection committees following alarming reports of physical and sexual abuse by school and tuition teachers and even shop-keepers operating near schools.
A dance teacher in his 40s was arrested for molesting a schoolboy late one evening after a school event, the NCPA said. The suspect allegedly offered the boy food and drinks and, after spiking the drinks, had molested the unconscious child. The suspect has a record of child molestation.
Earlier this month, a 39-year-old security guard at a school in Nikaweratiya was arrested for molesting three girls in Grade 5.
A private tuition maths teacher was arrested for abusing a 12-year-old boy over several months during lessons conducted at the boy’s house. The child had been shown explicit videos, the NCPA said. The abuse had taken place inside the boy’s room while the mother and grandmother were present in the house.
The Special Investigations branch of the NCPA arrested the suspect after the victim revealed the abuse to a close friend who reported it to his parents.
A shop vendor was recently arrested in Bataduwa, Galle for luring children with ice-cream, buns and money and abusing them inside his shop and in his house. He had been molesting children for more than two years.
It came as a shock for many parents in July after a 54-year-old well-known English tuition master, also a set designer of a television children’s reality show, was arrested by Kollupitiya police on charges of abusing schoolboys aged 10 to 12, all his students.
It emerged the suspect was involved in the sale of pornography, with hundreds of DVDs containing explicit footage found in his house in Pannipitiya.
“When schools are actively involved in curbing molestation, cruelty, abuse, children will open up to school counsellors,” NCPA Chairman Prof. Muditha Vidanapathirana told the Sunday Times, explaining the move to set up school protection committees.
“Unlike previous school protection committees that did not perform well, this time we are strengthening it with a continuous monitoring system and rating schools on safety.
“It is important for children to have some adult to trust and tell in case of an abuse or suspicious behavior of a staff member or even change in the behaviour of student who is being a victim of abuse at school or at home,” Prof. Vidanapathirana said.
Schools will have a complaints box, where children can drop in a written complaint anonymously, and strong counselling support is being built up he said. By the end of this year the programme would be successfully implemented.
The NCPA head said a number of registered counsellors, child psychiatrists and psychologists are being brought into the psychosocial programme. “School-appointed counsellors will receive training and can obtain assistance from experts as well,” Prof. Vidanapathirana said.
The 14,022 grama sevaka divisions will be made to submit the numbers of school dropouts to ensure all students are covered by school child protection committees. Registering of students is currently taking place in Uva province and Batticoloa districts.
A special audit report released by the Auditor-General on the “Role of the National Child Protection Authority relating to Child Abuse in Sri Lanka” this year stated that previous school child protection committees have been a failure.
“A sum of Rs. 29,058,645 had been incurred during the period of previous 8 years (2011-2018) for the establishment of School Child Protection Committees and the percentage of schools where Child Protection Committees were established by February 2018 out of the total number of 72 schools in the island was 35 per cent,” the report noted.
“The number of schools that possess active Committees out of the total number of schools was 23 per cent only. The number of Complaints regarding children during the period had increased from 6,076 up to 9, 512.”
The Auditor-General recommended making it compulsory for principals to set up committees and ensure they are in operation, and for the Ministry of Education to conduct child protection systems energetically.
At a recent event, Minister of Justice Ali Sabry stated the government was considering setting up a separate court, upon Cabinet approval, to hear child abuse cases.
Sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, cruelty, trafficking, rape and sexual abuse come under the category of grave crimes, punishable under the Penal Code.
| Asst. principal in court over pupil sex abuse claim | |
| An assistant principal of a leading Colombo school is charged with molesting a schoolboy who came to him for tuition, with the student’s mother allegedly offered a bribe to keep silent about the abuse. The accused man is in remand following a court appearance and his arrest on Wednesday. The 15-year-old boy had been coming to the assistant principal’s home for private tuition, a police officer involved in the investigation said. Initially, the classes had been on weekends but the accused man had later allegedly asked the schoolboy to come to him daily. Police said the student had refused to go to more classes and had told his mother about the abuse he had allegedly suffered. The wife of the alleged perpetrator, who also teaches at a school in the area, is claimed to have offered the victim’s mother Rs. 100,000 as hush-money. |