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SRI LANKA - CHILD RAPE ON THE RISE -
GIRLS
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spate of child rape cases in Sri Lanka has angered child rights activists and
moved the government to consider tightening the relevant laws and making the
offence punishable with the death sentence.
A
government statement released in parliament in May said that of the 1,450
female rape cases reported in 2011, child rape accounted for 1,169, alerting
authorities and activists to a rising trend.
Earlier this month, police said
in a statement that over 700 complaints of rape or abuse of children were filed
in the first half of the year, and that, on average, at least four cases
were being reported daily.
But, according to the National
Child Protection Authority (NCPA), the situation is far worse than what is
being reported to the police and the authority estimates that over 20,000 cases
of child abuse may have occurred in the first half of this year.
Among the reasons for such
abuse, as reported in the NCPA statement, are insecurity of children,
popularity of mobile phones with internet facilities among the youth, access to
pornography, increasing substance abuse and lack of sex education.
An October 2011 study of child
abuse in Sri Lanka’s north-central region – where unsettled conditions prevail
following the end of three decades of armed separatist militancy in 2009 –
showed that 30 percent of the cases were of female minors (below 15
years) having consensual sex with a male partner.
The rest of the cases were
attributed to the “strength, power and dominance of perpetrators who could be
relatives, teachers or religious dignitaries,” a senior prosecutor at the
attorney general’s office told IPS asking not to be named. “While we do our
part, society also needs to take a serious look at this issue,” he said.
The trend of powerful people
preying on minor girls is not confined to the north and east of the island
country. Recently, a 13-year-old girl identified four men, including a
local politician belonging to the ruling United People’s Freedom
Alliance (UPFA), of gang raping her.
Another UPFA politician, the
head of the local council in the southern town of
The Women and Media Collective
(WMC), a campaign group, has denounced these alleged crimes, saying
Responding to such allegations,
Tissa Karaliyadda, child development and women’s affairs minister, told
reporters earlier this month that he has drawn up plans to tighten the laws
that deal with child abuse, including making it punishable with the death
sentence.
Authorities are also trying to
sharply reduce the time taken – six years on average – to complete a prosecution,
and thereby reduce impunity to offenders who often get easy bail.
Dr. Hemamal Jayawardena, child
protection specialist from UNICEF,
Under Sri Lankan laws, those
under 16 years are defined as minors and sex with a minor is considered rape,
with or without consent.
A maximum jail term of 10 years
is imposed on offenders while the authorities are examining proposals to
enforce the death penalty and make it a non-bailable offence.
Under a project assisted by the
United Nations Children’s Fund, law enforcement authorities are experimenting
with a rapid three-month process involving selected courts across the island to
reduce the time taken to dispose cases of child abuse or rape.
Menaca Calyaneratne, director
of advocacy at Save the Children’s Colombo office, warns about a new breed of
abusers called ‘professional perpetrators’ who are “professionals in their
own fields but carefully choose an area of work that gives them unhindered
access to children in order to abuse them.”
Fields such as education,
sports, childcare organisations and children’s institutions harbour predators
such as principals, teachers and sports coaches who are known to abuse their
positions, she said, adding that about 90 percent of child abuse is
perpetrated by someone known to the victim.
“We used to tell children to be
careful of strangers, but that does not seem to be valid anymore,” Calyaneratne
told IPS.
Lack of awareness of sexual and
reproductive health among teenagers in villages is a serious problem. At a
village, some 75 km north of
“When there is a problem, the
girls come back and the parents file a complaint, it becomes a case of
suspected rape,” the worker said asking not to be identified for fear of
repercussions.
Police blame parents for lack
of supervision of their children while also citing women working abroad as
domestics and leaving the children under the care of a relative as some of the
reasons that lead to child abuse.
Sumithra Fernando, director at
Women in Need, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works with battered
women, says parents are often indifferent. “They are busy with their jobs and
often unaware of what their children are up to,” she told IPS.
Women’s groups say it is
important for fathers to take an interest in the welfare of their daughters.
“It’s a social obligation for
the father to share responsibilities,” argues Sepali Kottegoda, director at the
WMC. “When a girl is abused it is the mother who is blamed – rarely the
father,” she said.
“Sri Lankan society has also
become very violent and the situation is such that women and children have
become very vulnerable,” Kottegoda told IPS.
Prof. Siripala Hettige from
“The vast majority of
school-leavers don’t have proper jobs. They come to the city but can’t hold down
stable employment. And with the average age of marriage steadily going up
from 22 to 28, there are a lot of very frustrated people around,” Hettige told
IPS.This group of young people keeps moving around, looking for sexual
opportunities, Hettige explained.