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Child and women right activists demand justice; call on Govt to do more to protect children
View(s):The death of 16-year-old domestic worker at former minister Rishad Bathuideen’s Colombo residence has stirred a hornet’s nest with many child and women rights activists protesting countrywide demanding justice.
Activists this week staged protests in Colombo (before the residence of former minister), in Hatton, Kandy, Vavuniya, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Jaffna and other places, demanding that the Government take tough new measures to eliminate child labour and protect female domestic workers.
Parliamentarian and Upcountry People’s Front Leader V. Radhakrishnan who joined the protest in Colombo said the protests would continue until justice was done to the victim.
He said the Government should take the responsibility to end child labour and rescue hundreds of children employed in households countrywide.
A majority of child workers are from upcountry areas.
The Up Country Women’s Front said that employing an underage child was against the law and the fact that it happened in a former minister’s residence was unacceptable.
This is a case of a lawmaker breaking the law, the group’s deputy leader Swarnalatha Illangaiswari said.
“They are now saying this is a suicide. We will not accept this. The police must investigate and do justice for the child and family,” she insisted.
On July 3, the girl who was from Dayagama in the Nuwara Eliya District, was hospitalised with burn injuries. She died after 12 days at the Colombo National Hospital. She had confessed to committing suicide but an inquest done on the deceased has indicated that the underage girl has been systematically raped for a period of time.
The victim was 15 when she was brought to work at the politician’s house. A separate investigations is underway in this regard.
Police investigations have also unearthed a case where a 22-year-old woman, also from Dayagama, had been allegedly raped by the 44-year-old brother-in-law of Mr. Bathiudeen when she had worked as a maid for two years at the former minister’s residence before she was replaced by the teenage victim.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bathiudeen’s wife Shihabdeen Ayesha, father-in-law Mohamed Shihabdeen, brother-in-law Shihabdeen Ismathdeen and the broker Ponniah Pandaram were produced at the Chief Magistrate courts in Hulfdrop yesterday after they were taken in for questioning on Friday.
The police said that they had collected scientific, circumstantial and technical evidence on the death of the girl and so far recorded statements from 20 people. The suspects were produced at the Colombo Magistrate’s Courts yesterday and the court gave police permission to detain them for 48 hours for further questioning.
The 64-year-old broker, Ponniah Pandaram, would be charged with child trafficking and the other suspects with cruelty towards children, the police said.