It was a war they had not asked for, and did not understand, even now that it was over; a war that had robbed them not only of material possessions but also of something infinitely more precious: their childhood innocence. While children in other parts of the country played the games of childhood, went to school, ate wholesome food to make them grow, all within the comforting embrace of home, the children caught in the conflict of the North and East were forced to forfeit the freedom of childhood. Denied the bare necessities of life, an education, even a roof over their heads, they were vulnerable to abuse and conscription to serve an adult’s cause, or were forced to forage among the carrion of war for survival.
Their movements are careful, precise and the beat of the music, rhythmic. Their batons glint silver in the morning sun as they take one exacting step and the next, faces tight with concentration, eyes never leaving their leader. They are smartly dressed in black trousers and white shirts and their batons are green Sprite mega bottles. It could have been an athletic display in any one of a hundred schools. Look closer.
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| Students of Nuffield School of the Deaf and Blind: Striving for normalcy |
The pretty young girl on your left, is she really missing three fingers? And what are those terrible gashes on the arms of that fresh faced, eager little boy who smiles so engagingly? They take their bows proudly, basking in the spontaneous applause of an appreciative audience rendered speechless by the enormity of what was unfolding before our amazed eyes. It was a sad mimicry of normalcy, of the young striving bravely to take up the vestiges of shattered lives.
We were at the Nuffield School of the Deaf and Blind in Kaithady. It houses 140 visually challenged and hearing impaired children and is also home and refuge to 80 children of war, some of the hapless and helpless victims of the violent human conflict. The horrors they had endured were beyond our worst nightmares. Growing up in the shadow of war, they had fallen asleep to the sounds of incessant shelling and gunfire, and brutally awakened to falling debris to the ruins of their world.
They had seen parents, siblings, loved ones, friends, gunned down or lost to bomb blasts before their eyes. Many are maimed for life, by blast injuries from shells and landmines that robbed them of limbs, eye-sight, hearing and have massive burn injuries and permanent scars caused by shrapnel embedded deep in their skins. The post-traumatic mental traumas they suffer still remain largely undiagnosed and untreated.
The Nuffield School tries, with its limited means, to care for some of these children of war through a few grants from some international NGOs and religious organisations, mainly churches in the vicinity. The school is almost self-sufficient in food, with a vegetable farm irrigated by an eco friendly drip system popular in Middle Eastern countries. But financing of the daily expenditure continues to be a problem.
The Karuna Nilayam is another organisation set up to house the internally displaced. Set up in Kilinochchi in 1955 by British missionary Muriel Hutchins, the Karuna Nilayam is presently home to 40 displaced girls and 19 mentally challenged older women, a drop in numbers from the earlier figures of 70 and 20 respectively. The complex sustained severe damage during the war and an estimated Rs 18 million is needed to reconstruct its 12 buildings.
International NGO funds are helping towards rebuilding the premises, as is the Anglican Church, but progress is slow due to financial constraints.
The older women are temporarily housed in the parish hall of St. James Church, Nallur, which has only the most basic facilities. The young children of school-going age are being accommodated temporarily at Temple Road, belonging to St. John’s Church Chundukuli. They attend Chundukuli Girls’ College and other schools in the vicinity. Our visit to them was memorable….
A chorus of animated voices reaches us, and bursts into a song of welcome as we enter the room. A pretty young woman in the traditional shalwar kameez greets us, introducing herself as the matron of the Karuna Nilayam. We hear later that the war had cost her a leg. Despite the outward façade of cheerful acceptance, a more discerning look sees the deep and profound sadness that permeates their very being.
A wide chasm separates us. Their experiences are not ours. How do we relate to them? Express our deep distress at the trauma they had faced? Our tentative overtures seem inadequate.
Chundukuli Girls’ College and St. John’s College provide schooling and accommodation for about 100 internally displaced girls and 500 boys respectively, both boarders as well as day scholars. The annual school fees start at about Rs 3000 depending on the grade. Boarding fees are in the region of Rs. 5000 per term for a boarder. Some well wishers and past students meet these costs, but the two schools are saddled with the bulk of these expenses.
These are the ‘lucky’ ones. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more out there, invisible yet hurting, children, women, men. But children bear disproportionate consequences of conflict and are among its first casualties, the most vulnerable. UNICEF reports indicate that at least 300,000 children were affected by the 26-year-old conflict in the North and East, and of the 70,000 lives lost, more than 10,000 are believed to be children.
The 21st century continues to see patterns of children as victims not only of terrorist warfare, but also as deliberately targeted victims of various other forms of abuse - human trafficking, domestic violence, domestic labour, rape – in short, they are subjected to physical, mental and emotional abuse in the hands of parents and elders placed in positions of trust, the very people who are honour-bound to protect them. The fact that a fourth of the cases presently pending in the Sri Lankan courts relate to crimes against children, is a stark indicator of the depths to which our society has fallen.
All these child victims, of war as well as other types of aggression, need love, care, protection and a renewed hope for a better tomorrow. It is in our power to help them. Only we can make it happen. |
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