It's everybody's 'child' as new law is born

By Dilrukshi Handunnetti, our Lobby Correspondent

In the often divided House by the Diyawanna, collective efforts transcending petty political differences are indeed rare. Yet like the proverbial phoenix, our representatives also rise from the very ashes, assuring that all hope is not lost.

When Justice Minister G. L. Peiris, an eloquent professor of law, presented on Thursday the landmark bill seeking to establish a National Child Protection Authority, a heartening spirit of bipartisanship prevailed.

Dr. Peiris began his exhaustive delivery with a quote from Maha Parinibbana Sutta, the Buddha's final sermon which said the quality of any society could be ascertained by one criterion — the treatment meted out to vulnerable sections of society.

The minister with great fervour explained that the archaic laws were insufficient to meet the present day criminal realities — hence the horrendous mismatch in legal mechanisms and ground situation.

"Our legal system is complex with a fascinating variety of personal laws — a veritable legal museum. From time to time, the political leadership has formulated commendable laws, but there was no cohesion or co-ordination and objectives were never realised. The new bill covered all aspects like legal reform, counselling and the raising of awareness."

The Minister who explained at length various measures adapted to protect the rights of the child said there was no greater concern than the grave issue of a defiled younger generation -and any committed government had much to do for child welfare.

Speaking next was UNP veteran from Harispattuwa, A.C.S. Hameed. Adding some friendly and witty exchanges to the serious debate, he presented the UNP as a caring opposition while referring to a claim by Dr. Peiris that the government was not arrogant. Hence the spirit of national conscience displayed in supporting the bill.

Recommending certain changes in the bill, Mr. Hameed said the national authority should also include the media and the NGO because it was composed mainly of bureaucrats and it should represent laymen views. He said the composition should include the widest cross section of society and not be too 'officialised.'

But he also asked an important question.

"Dr. Peiris with customary generosity has piloted the bill, but who actually would take responsibility for all this? The bill brought in several ministries together and this led to confusion. Who was the all powerful minister who could send directives to all kinds of ministries as it tampers with each minister's powers?"

Mr. Hameed seemed to enjoy constant interventions by the amiable Tourism Minister Dharmasiri Senanayake. Replying him, he said tongue in cheek, "I myself am orphaned." Perhaps he may be referring to his present low key position in the party.

PA firebrand Vasudeva Nanayakkara spoke in a subdued tone, symbolic of his recent stand on various issues after he was warned by the leadership to toe the line or get out.

Mr. Nanayakkara, said he did not wish to dampen the spirit of those who took to the cause of child protection with zeal and fervour.

But like his political guru Karl Marx, he blamed the economy, saying that social conditions were the foundation of all types of abuses and children were caught up in this vicious economic trends which deflower them.

Identifying the main con tributors to the plethora of abuses as poverty, war and absolute consumerism, Mr. Nanayakkara said laws could not arrest unhealthy social trends when the economic situations fed the overfed and starved the impoverished.

Following his zealous contribution was ' Digamadulla member P. Dayaratne who said problems relating to children have drastically changed with the social evolution. The previous abuses were not the ones that were heard today. While there was a decrease in the number of street children, those in armed conflict have steadily increased.

Child labour, trafficking of children and using them as domestics were the issues of yesteryear- though these acts were still being perpetrated, he said adding that it was alarming to see the number of children rendered refugees and displayed in the areas in conflict.

Mr. Dayaratne said contrary to the common belief, foreign and local adoptions had their positive side. If the applicants were carefully screened to guarantee that our children did not fall into the hands of racketeers, they could have the necessary financial assistance and the joy of finding vital parental care.

Sarath Gunawardene, UNP member from Hikkaduwa, the area with the worst record of child prostitution, lamented the lack of funding for child care and probation centres in the area.

Illustrating his case, the burly member said a child was killed when the roof of one such centre collapsed.

"It is tragic that the south which has a rich cultural heritage and history should be known as a paradise for cheap child sex. Scantilly clad foreigners parade the area and children were exploited in more ways than one. It speaks volumes about our attitude towards the young when we see the ill maintained homes," he said.

Claiming that the Social Services Ministry allocated only Rs. 23 per day for a child's maintenance in these centres, he appealed for an increase in allocation.

Labour Minister John Seneviratne sought to elucidate on the links between child labour and poverty.

According to the ILO, Asian countries were the worst child labour exploiters — a legacy that did not sit well on a region boasting of a rich cultural heritage and social values.

"Our social responsibility and duty of care have been observed in the breach, though poverty was the worst offender. We were slow to bring culprits to book fearing bad publicity and this led to the perpetuating of unhealthy trend of violating rights of children," he said.

Toeing a similar line, UNP young turk Upali Amarasiri said abuses were rampant in rural areas due to poverty and the large size of families.

"Parents did not wish to part from children, but were compelled to do so due to poverty. They give some children away as domestics to make extra cash to feed the others. If there was a special programme to assist such overburdened families, perhaps children could still live with their parents," he said.

Hailing President Premadasa's Foster Parent Scheme, he said this was one sure way to provide the child with necessities and the security of parental love and care.

Citing a recent incident, Mr. Amarasiri said a 28 year old woman had become a grandmother. Married at 12 and given her daughter at the age of 13, she had never had the privilege of leading an uninterrupted childhood and deprived her daughter of the same.

Matara Parliamentarian E.A. Samarasinghe was next. He said child abuse thrived in the present legal system based on archaic laws which did not deal with present realities.

It was useless to impose lenient sentences and petty fining. The punishment should fit the crime and the prison term should be made compulsory.

Chinese restaurants became the target of criticism when UNP's Gampaha district member Suranimala Rajapakse spoke.

He said many such places provided much more than mouth watering Chinese dishes. These profit centred restaurants were a haven to students wanting to drink or smoke.

Delivering a spicy speech with many reference to robber barrens and wheeler dealers who nurtured a culture of violence and abuse during the UNP rule was Cultural Affairs Minister Lakshman Jayakody.

A heavy responsibility was placed on any government to protect the younger generation for they were a country's very future, he said.

Successive governments have striven to do their best, and this spirit of togetherness displayed in parliament by members of both sides of the divide showed that children were actually the common cause for all — there was no political hue in it.

The senior parliamentarian said is was disturbing to know that more than 10,000 children were child prostitutes. A reactivated police was cracking the whip on offenders. He suggested that names of offenders should be divulged as a matter of principle but not the victims whose identity should be safeguarded.

Making a worthy contribution was UNP's Ronnie de Mel who applauded the bill as progressive and historic.

He too appealed for the enhancement of punishment and criticised the composition of the Authority as too bureaucratic and lacking civil representation.

The bespectacled member from Devinuwara said it was a misconception that abuses were rampant only in third world countries, for the West had a terrible record as well. "From Woody Allen to Michael Jackson, celebrities have been accused of paedophilia and brought before justice."

Having a well aimed dig at some NGOs, he said these good samaritans often had their own agenda which they pursued through the local do gooders. They did not campaign for nothing or for sheer human concern. They wished our emerging and thriving industries to be rendered uncompetitive.

Making a sterling contribution was UNP's Kabeer Hashim. The young member while elucidating the evolution of laws relating to children, saw the non-submission for public comment and exclusion of professionals, media, NGOs and others who worked closely with children as the biggest drawbacks of the bill.

The abuses mostly stemmed from poverty, said Mr. Hashim quoting Buddha again. The Buddha when he met a person who wished to listen to one of his sermons said that he would first feed him as it was impractical to preach to a man with an empty stomach.

Concluding for the day was Industrial Development Minister C.V. Gooneratne who said that in a society full of vice and human values at lowest ebb, it was no wonder that powerful people and their spouses made money by running baby farms — a despicable way to make money.

The minister appreciative of the bipartisan approach displayed by MPs wished that this spirit of togetherness would prevail in dealing with future issues requiring national consensus.

It was close to upsetting Indo-Lankan apple cart

By Our India Correspondent

On August 14, when SLAF's Kfir jets turned the cargo vessel, MV Princess Kash, into a towering inferno off the Mullaitivu coast, an unpleasant mixture of surprise, dismay and apprehension engulfed South Block, the stately but sombre home of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi.

The ship, owned by Arun Kashyap, a Canadian national of Indian origin, had a 21 member crew of which 17, including the captain, were Indian. After thirteen hours of virtual silence on the fate of the ship and the crew on the part of the Sri Lankan military authorities came a strident announcement from very strange quarters, the President's Office. The brief but high strung statement charged the captain of the ship of smuggling "dangerous merchandise" to the LTTE.

What this was, never clarified. But the statement said that the ship's refusal to obey naval commands to keep at least 50 nautical miles from the shore, as per regulations, and the plying of small boats from the ship to the shore, had given rise to suspicion that the captain was in league with the LTTE in a smuggling operation. The navy had no alternative to getting the air force to destroy the ship, the statement said. The statement made no mention of the fate of the crew, which it said, vaguely, was multi-national including Sri Lankans. But meanwhile, it was widely known that the captain was an Indian, and so was the bulk of the crew. Their names also came to be known.

The charge that the ship was on a smuggling mission for the LTTE caught the Indians off guard. The Indian High Commissioner in Colombo, Shivshankar Menon, had a one to one meeting with the Sri Lankan President, Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga. Though details are not available, it is learnt from reliable quarters that the President explained the compulsions behind the action while the Indian envoy sought more details on the episode and the charge.

India had no doubt that, as a sovereign country faced with terrorism of the most diabolical kind, Sri Lanka had every right to take stern action. India also accepted the Lankan argument that suspicions of the kind voiced might not necessarily be groundless, given the capabilities of the LTTE of penetrating the most impregnable structures.

But, at the same time, New Delhi was anxious that Indians should not be killed or taken hostage. India was also of the view the crew or the captain should not be detained on mere suspicion without concrete evidence. The pressure lightened a bit when it became known that the crew were safe, albeit in LTTE custody.

New Delhi was very keen not to blow up the incident, as some interested parties on both sides of the Tamil-Sinhalese ethnic divide might want an India-Sri Lanka confrontation.

The relations between the two countries could not have been friendlier when this happened. New Delhi did not want the apple cart upset on any account. South Block and its men in Colombo were on a low key.

The Sri Lankan government too, kept a low profile on this issue not saying anything after the Presidential press release on the night of the incident. Even the CID investigations into the possible terrorist links of the traders and the shipping company were kept under wraps. Though the Tamil press went to town on the matter, the Sinhalese and the mainstream English language press kept its cool, for whatever reason.

As an Indian official said, the foremost task before India was to secure the release of the Indians in captivity and send them home by the first available flight. It is understood that while India had not objected to the Sri Lankan authorities' questioning the crew to get details of the view from the other side, it sought and secured an assurance from the highest quarters that the crew would not be detained or arrested without some concrete evidence.

Fortunately for India, the LTTE did not want to keep the crew as hostage either for bargaining with the Sri Lankans, or exacerbating tension between India and Sri Lanka and getting India embroiled in the island's ethnic crisis once again. A swift announcement by the Tigers through the ICRC that they were willing to immediately hand over the Indian crew to the Indian authorities through the ICRC brought immense relief to New Delhi.

But what surprised the Indians was that the Sri Lankan authorities had shown no eagerness to even talk to the crew, even though they were in the High Commission for a whole evening and the better part of the next day, and had passed through army held Vavuniya en route to Colombo earlier.

Though there was always a feeling that the Sri Lankan authorities might at any time want to interrogate/question the men, Indian mission officials were apparently confident that there was no substance in the Sri Lankan government's charge of collusion with LTTE and that an interrogation or detention was unlikely. This is perhaps why they let some Indian journalists speak to the crew.

Captain B.N. Karkera was forthright, though still shaken by the hijacking and bombing, reports on the impromptu press conference said. He totally denied the charge of smuggling and said that the ship was hijacked, completely taken over and steered to the shoreline, by the LTTE. He said that he kept telling the Sri Lankan navy of his movements and what was happening on board. He appealed to the Sri Lankans by walkie talkie not to bomb the ship as the crew was still on board.

"Had the LTTE not evacuated us in the nick of time, we would have been killed. Only God saved us," the Indian papers quoted Capt. Karkera as saying. He denied that the LTTE had unloaded any cargo.

"Nothing was unloaded. All that they wanted to know, when they seized the ship was, whether the ship was carrying any arms and ammunition for the army," the skipper said.

But minutes before the crew were to board the 2.30 pm Indian Airlines flight to Chennai at the Bandaranaike International Airport on August 19, two of them, Master/Captain Karkera and Chief Officer, Ramesh Singh, were kept back and questioned in the VIP lounge.

But the Indian mission was assured by the highest quarters in the country that the duo would be put on the 4.30 pm AirLanka flight. The questioning was also done in the presence of an official of the mission, who was equipped with a mobile phone. But when the AirLanka flight did not take off at 4.30 pm there was renewed speculation about the fate of the two Indian seamen.

To everyone's relief, however, the flight took off an hour later with Capt. Karkera and Chief Officer Ramesh Singh well and truly on board, ending a drama, which, if not handled the way it was, would have snowballed into a major Indo-Lankan issue.

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