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News Image 33043 - Today is International Children s Day
Wednesday, 1 October 2008 - 8:44 PM SL Time - Some news pictures are worth a million words
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Today is International Children s Day
For want of a cohesive strategy on the part of the Sri Lankan State, the child population is vulnerable to a spate of threats. Although employment of children less than 14 years of age is prohibited by law, there are thousands of such children employed as domestic aides and labourers.
Labour Commissioner Ms. Pearl Weerasinghe in a recent interview with The Island said there were over 30,000 child slaves and sexual exploitation of children by foreign perverts and Sri Lankans was on the rise. She vowed that under the provisions of the Employment of Women and Young Persons and Children Act No 47 of 1956, her Department with the help of the National Child Protection Authority and Police would crackdown on errant employers.
In the absence of tangible measures to meet the growing challenge of child exploitation, the situation will continue to deteriorate. Although governments the world over, INGOs and NGOs hold a range of high profile programmes to mark October 1- the International Children s Day-the root causes of child exploitation remain. Sri Lanka is no exception.
Existing laws to prevent child labour will not help alleviate the suffering of the hapless working children. Successive governments and Provincial Councils had failed to look after the interests of the children despite making a plethora of promises.
Deprived of education
With the sky rocketing of the cost of living more families will be forced to deprive their children of schooling. While politicians discuss grandiose plans to provide a section of the student population with personal lap top computers, others drop out of schools due to financial constraints. Deprived of their fundamental right to education, children find employment at workshops, garages, wayside eateries and in some instances end up as sex workers. The vast majority of politicians and public servants responsible for child welfare are blind to this pathetic reality. Had they been caring of the wellbeing of the children, child abuse wouldn t have been an issue today. Unfortunately this is not the case.
Working as a domestic aide wouldn t be a bad choice if one considered the alternatives. Child labour thrives on poverty and our politicians are seemingly blind to this basic fact. In the absence of a mechanism to monitor the actual ground situation and negligence on the part of successive administrations, child exploitation will remain a major problem. The issue of child exploitation should be tackled together with crime against women as the two issues are related.
Unless there is a mechanism for rehabilitation of children who are forced to work for their livelihood and survival, laws will be ineffective. They are subjected to physical violence, psychological traumas and at times even sexual and drug abuse at places of work
Child labour is a social reality but mere introduction of laws to curb child labour is a cosmetic exercise.
Child slaves
The employment of children, in some instances from the northern and eastern provinces at fireworks factories at Katiyala and Kimbulapitiya in the Negombo police division is continuing. Among the 29 persons rescued by the Negombo Police had been many children forced to work without adequate pay and food. Fleeing their ramshackle homes in war-torn areas to escape conscription, they had ended up as slave workers in the South. The victims included six women.
For want for employment, many children take up fishing.
But nothing could be more cruel than having children in Prisons with their mothers until they serve their sentences.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his recent address to the UN in New York discussed the growing dangers faced by the children. Calling children the most vulnerable asset of any nation, Rajapaksa said that children had been corrupted by pornographic material available on the internet. Pointing out the threat posed by paedophiles and drug dealers, he declared that Sri Lanka had prohibited pornographic and similar destructive sites from being available through Internet service providers. He also proudly declared that action had been taken to prevent the use of mobile telephones for spreading pornographic material.
But this is far from the truth. Although the President has directed the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka to stop the proliferation of obscene and pornographic material on the internet, sex sites are easily accessible. For want of scrutiny on the part of the government, a TRC directive issued on August 1 that Internet service providers should filter obscene, pornographic and sexually explicit material, had not been implemented. The President may not be aware of this embarrassing lapse. pictures of Sri Lankan girls are now on the Internet and over the past two years, the Bureau for the Prevention of Abuse of Children and Women had received many complaints from the abused. Some unscrupulous persons had posted pictures of Sri Lankan women on the internet offering free sex. The camera phone is increasingly used to spread nude pictures of Sri Lankan women. An example was the posting of a photograph of a Sri Lankan employee by a colleague.
Sumedha s hotline
The Child Development and Women s Empowerment Ministry recently set up a hotline to report child abuse. Child Development Minister Sumedha Jayasena is on record saying that this was a long-felt need and it would help the child victims. Although she couldnbe faulted for setting up a special telephone line to receive complaints, the administration has turned a blind eye to a spate of child abuse cases revealed by the print and electronic media.
The sexual assault on a 14-year-old boy by M. G. Chandrasiri, the Officer-in-Charge of the Hakmana Police station close on the heels of the arrest of Kalutara (North) OIC Jackson on a charge of raping a 14-year-old girl revealed the pathetic situation. Chandrasiri remains at large. The press also reported the rape of another school girl due to the failure on the part of Kegalle Police Division to act on repeated complaints. Had police acted promptly, she would not have been deprived of her childhood.
Attempted suicide
A suicide bid by a 28-year-old mother and her four daughters due to poverty should have embarrassed all political parties. They had been without adequate food for days and no proper shelter while taxpayers money was being squandered on food for parliamentarians and public servants there. The Auditor General s exposure on the deplorable waste of food was evidence that politicians were blind to the sufferings of the people struggling to make ends meet.
Shocking state of child health
The recent Health Ministry/UNICEF reports have revealed the shocking status of child health and the dangers faced by pregnant women. According to them, among the children less than five years, 13.5 per cent suffered from chronic malnutrition.
At least 30 per cent of children less than five years of age suffered from anaemia. The percentage of school children suffering from chronic malnutrition and anaemia had been estimated at 19.6 and 21. Of 33.3 per cent adolescents suffering from acute malnutrition, almost 23 per cent suffer from anaemia, too, according to the latest findings.
The reports revealed the appalling conditions of pregnant women with over 30 per cent experiencing anaemia. Officials said the situation would be much worse in rural and plantation areas and the northern and eastern areas.
The deteriorating health situation had exposed the population to a range of other diseases, particularly diabetes, high blood pressure and heart attacks.
The recently released figures had been worked out last year. The actual situation would be much worse than portrayed by the latest findings. Due to the recent steep increase in all essential food items, particularly milk foods, fish, dry fish and meat due to a variety of reasons fuelled by unprecedented increase in fuel prices, the country would have to study the damaging impact on the population. The bottom line was that runaway inflation had pushed a sizeable population towards poverty. Unfortunately the government and international agencies which sponsor grandiose schemes to tackle poverty seemed to be ignorant of the actual situation.
The death of several infants at the Negombo Hospital in July and August under mysterious circumstances, too, should open the eyes of the authorities who seemed to blissfully believe that child rights could be preserved by having art exhibitions.
Ratnapura paedophile
There is a need to conduct a thorough study on child care centres run by the government, Provincial Councils and NGOs to prevent abuses. Late last year, a raid on Kandy Queens Hotel, revealed a paedophile procuring a 14-year-old boy from a child care centre in Ratnapura. At the time of the raid, the boy had been under the influence of liquor. Unfortunately authorities had failed to investigate it as a special case. Although investigations had revealed that the boy being taken out by the same person on a previous occasion, most probably to the same hotel, authorities had been sluggish.
The alleged involvement of the chief incumbent of Ubesekararama Viharaya Ven. Medapitiye Wimaladharma, Vice Principal Janadhipathy Vidyalaya, Veyangoda on the death of six-year-old Kasmira Sugandi at a pre-school run by the temple and the order given by the Bambalapitiya Juvenile court to remove all children under ten years of age from Vajira Sri Children s Rehabilitation Home at Sri Jayawardenapura should have prompted an in-depth investigation. Although, the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) had conclusive evidence that over a dozen boys between the age of nine and 13 had been sexually abused at the Vajira Home in 2003, its administration had been allowed to keep children.
Sexual assault on several students of Kathaluwa M.V. in 2005 by a labourer within the school premises and the arrest of Pradhana Sanganayaka of the South Ven. Gatamanne Dhammakiththi for raping a 14-year-old girl who gave birth at Matara Hospital should prompt the government to call for a review of child protection laws.
The Loyala College, Negombo, too, has been investigated for child abuse.
The LTTE and its breakaway faction headed by Chief Minister of the Eastern Provincial Council are accused of forcibly recruiting children to their ranks. The deployment of child soldiers remains a major issue with the internationally community putting pressure on the LTTE and the TMVP to end the despicable practice. Ironically Chandrakanthan had been a child soldier himself conscripted at the age of 14.
Sent by member: Dauntless
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Rapaport
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 1 Oct 2008 13:48:51 GMT Report for Abuse
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| In this hour LTTE and TMVP must release the poor kids! |
AstroLTTE
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 1 Oct 2008 13:49:53 GMT Report for Abuse
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| Sure Pirubha will look at this photo long time and wish if he can get these kids to his Pee Army.....:-) |
CMBLion
Joined: May 2007
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 1 Oct 2008 13:51:01 GMT Report for Abuse
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| It's the day when the Bunker Rat goes hunting for child soldiers. |
Thalaivar
Joined: Jun 2008
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1 Oct 2008 14:02:46 GMT Report for Abuse
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Today chidren were injured by slaf attack
Edited By - Thalaivar - 1 Oct 2008 14:03:18 GMT |
KURAL
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1 Oct 2008 14:03:46 GMT Report for Abuse
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he sexual assault on a 14-year-old boy by M. G. Chandrasiri, the Officer-in-Charge of the Hakmana Police station
State Terrorists cry too for your own children raped by your saddic police! |
KURAL
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1 Oct 2008 14:08:29 GMT Report for Abuse
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Today chidren were injured by slaf attack
State Terrorists are more than HAPPY cause they want our eradiction whatever we are innocents or not. |
ajan
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1 Oct 2008 15:17:51 GMT Report for Abuse
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My heart go out to the childrens in the warzone.
i personally had seen so much of tragedy and so many school childrens got killed by sinhala state terrorists. a friend of mine who was merely 12 at the time was on on his way to school was murdered by sinhala state terrorists and his body was dumped in the well.
and i remember how many nights we were thinking of this horror. |
PULI0007
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 1 Oct 2008 15:21:01 GMT Report for Abuse
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GOSL giving cake to Sinhala children and giving bombs to wanni tamil children.....and killed 75 tamil children calling them LTTE in Senchoolai Kilinochchi
Edited By - PULI0007 - 1 Oct 2008 15:21:51 GMT |
KfirC2
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 1 Oct 2008 15:40:10 GMT Report for Abuse
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and killed 75 tamil children calling them LTTE in Senchoolai Kilinochchi
Truth about Sencholai...
There was a long controversy about the 54 young schoolgirls killed in the aerial bomb attack on a camp in Vallipunam on 14th August 2006 where it was maintained that the girls were receiving first aid training. Residents now confirm that the girls were forcibly taken by the LTTE and the training was of a military nature. This does not however justify the Government bombing the schoolgirls.
http://www.uthr.org/bulletins/Bul46.htm
All those support LTTE have blood in their hands for Sencholai
Edited By - KfirC2 - 1 Oct 2008 15:41:34 GMT |
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