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trafficking? The Tamil girl with the initials KU (full name withheld to protect her identity) who had been detected by Malaysian immigration authorities when she landed in Kuala Lumpur with a bogus travel document has claimed she is a victim of the tsunami. She was deported on flight MH 189 from Kuala Lumpur to Colombo and met at the Bandaranaike International Airport at midnight by representatives of the NCPA and taken to a shelter run by the Salvation Army. "The girl arrived on a Malaysian Airlines flight that landed at Katunayake around 12.45 a.m. on Thursday and was met by our officials including Inspector W.T.T. Wijesena. A person claiming to be her grandmother was also at the airport," NCPA Chairman Prof. Harendra de Silva said. The girl is reported to be from Kilinochchi. Both the woman and the child were then taken to the shelter of the Salvation Army. The Sunday Times learns that the girl was detected in Kuala Lumpur when she arrived there with a Canadian woman of Sri Lankan Tamil origin. The woman was on her way to Canada and was trying to take the girl on her Canadian passport that had the photograph of a different girl. After consultation with Canadian officials based in Kuala Lumpur and assurances that legal action would be initiated in Canada when she arrived there, the woman had been sent on but the girl kept at the immigration depot in Kuala Lumpur. The girl and the woman had arrived in Malaysia in early January. "The Malaysian immigration authorities informed us on February 1, about this child who says her parents were killed in the tsunami," says Saman Ekanayake, Minister at the Sri Lankan High Commission in Malaysia, who visited and spoke to her many times in Kuala Lumpur. In a strange but common twist to incidents of illegal smuggling of people, the child's Sri Lankan passport issued in August 2004 and a ticket to Colombo had been posted to the Malaysian immigration authorities by unidentified persons. The Sri Lankan passport did not have an exit stamp on it nor did it have a visa to enter Malaysia. There were no visas and no immigration stamps on the girl's passport, except a round seal saying that she left Colombo on January 1. This information was provided by the Malaysian immigration. We can assume, therefore, that the girl may have been brought from Colombo to Kuala Lumpur using the Canadian passport of the woman who was with her," says Mr. Ekanayake. "The moment the Malaysian immigration informed us about the girl, we contacted both the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry's consular division and the NCPA," explained Mr. Ekanayake, adding that the Malaysian immigration looked after the girl very well. "The girl told us that the woman with whom she had travelled to Malaysia was known to her grandmother." NCPA's Prof. de Silva said there were two issues in cases such as this. "The first was that it was a case of passport forgery under organized crime by other parties involved in this. The second issue, of course, would be who the child's parents are. Whether they were already in Canada, gone there illegally or whether they were caught up in the tsunami need to be investigated." How is it that the so-called grandmother knew that she was coming back to Sri Lanka? The events surrounding this incident are very suspicious, Prof. de Silva said, adding that even if the parents were victims of the tsunami, someone needs to be the legal guardian of the child, a minor, to allow the child to leave the country. "We are taking this case very seriously and considering it a form of trafficking until our investigations establish otherwise," he added. Trafficking
hard to prove The bureau has recorded 117 "missing children", not only through complaints but also by monitoring each and every media report. "It is tragic but true that some of the children have died in the tsunami but some parents are hoping against hope that they are just missing. We are looking into all such incidents," he said, assuring that two police teams were on standby all the time. However, he was categorical that there has not been a single report of abduction or trafficking."Trafficking of children for any purpose is very hard to prove," says child rights activist Mallika Ganasinghe who has done the rounds in the tsunami-affected areas, visiting most of the camps for the displaced in the east and the south. Explaining that finding the chain of culprits from agent to receiver and also seller be it a parent or someone else was tedious and required an intensive search, she said that is why it was difficult for the authorities to focus on trafficking. "Trafficking is a process where there is no consent, there is a money deal, maybe forged travel documents such as a passport and also what is called deception of work. This means that the persons who are being trafficked, mostly if they are adults, are being deceived on the kind of employment they are being taken for. Ms. Ganasinghe who is conducting a study on the plight of children caught up in the tsunami says that during her visits to the camps there were reports that a few children who had been around in the first few days were not there after a while. "In the east, even a police complaint had been made that a child who was in a camp had been taken elsewhere. I heard of a similar case in the south. In one instance in the south, a mother who heard that her child was in a particular camp, found to her dismay on arriving there that the little girl was missing," says Ms. Ganasinghe.
Magistrate calls for 3 reports Instructing that the child be examined by a doctor, the Chief Magistrate has ordered that a medical report along with a report from the Department of Probation and Child Care and the NCPA's report on the progress of inquiries be submitted on that date until which time the child is to be kept in the shelter. |
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