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Ending child abuse

The Government's decision to set up a special police unit to contain child abuse which will function in close collaboration with the National Child Protection Authority, is a timely boon to the children of this country. By launching it today, Universal Children's Day, the State hopes to drive home the point that top priority is being attached to the promotion of child welfare - an important dimension of the national interest.

It is the turmoil and the bloodshed of the past 20 years which helped highlight the degree of vulnerability the children of Sri Lanka are subjected to. Prior to the launching of the worldwide movement for the protection of child rights, culminating in the establishment of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child about a decade ago, to which Sri Lanka is a signatory, children to a large measure, were accorded secondary status by sections of the adult world. It was presumed that the young should subject themselves to the traditional norms of conduct, whether beneficial or otherwise, the adult world devised for them. Nor was there a clear perception of the totality of children's needs.

There was also no indepth understanding of the effects, both good and bad, these standards of conduct produced on the average child. "Received wisdom" on the upbringing of children was considered best by the moulders of the child's world, who were, of course, adults and elders.

The other side of this coin on the insensitivity to the needs of the child, were the numerous abuses to which some of them were habitually subjected by the adult world. Two of these were sexual abuse and the subjection of less privileged children to difficult, manual labour.

Today, the growing awareness of the gravity of sexual abuse, for example, has helped unearth many a gross crime of this nature which had been perpetrated against some children of the land. Sexual abuse of children by adults had been present in society to a lesser or greater degree over the years but the establishment of this perversion as a grave crime and the rising awareness and propagation of child rights have enabled many an erring adult to be brought to book. To use a popular expression, children can no longer be taken for granted.

What facilitates the promotion and protection of child rights today, is a greater commitment on the part of the political establishment to these tasks. President Kumaratunga, for instance, spearheaded the launching of the National Child Protection Authority, a few years ago. Greater effectiveness is bound to be injected into the operations of the NCPA, through the present Government's decision to affiliate to it a special police unit charged with checking child abuse in all its forms. We hope these arrangements will result in a substantial reduction of child abuse.

It was the war years that did most harm to the well-being of Lanka's children. The most obvious form of abuse in this context, was the phenomenon of child combatants in the North-East. Closely related forms of abuse and neglect occurred in regions which were described as operational areas and those others in close proximity to them, such as "border villages". Some of these grew out of unstable conditions of war and produced emotional traumas among children and a resultant lack of schooling, food and shelter.

Today, malnourishment and stunting are common among children of the North-East. However, the long years of war also produced generations of brutalized adults who in turn exerted a deleterious impact on the young. For instance, sections of the young were sexually abused by these adults who suffered personality disorders or were subjected to humiliating treatment by them. The worst off in the latter category were child domestic labourers. This is how the inhumanity of the war came to be visited on our children.

More years of war and bloodshed would leave behind a totally savaged people.

If the children of today, prove to be emotionally unstable, nothing much could be expected of the adults of tomorrow. This is another predominant reason why a crackdown on child abuse cannot be postponed. We hope the special police unit would go about this task with unequalled enthusiasm.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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