The National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) had received 79,259 complaints on child abuses during the previous eight years, but more than half of those complaints stood unresolved.
A recent Audit Report by the National Audit Office said that 42,073 complaints (53%) had not been resolved. Child abuse cases include physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse and negligence.
The audit report issued by Auditor General W.P.C.Wickramaratne was critical of the NCPA’s inability to properly implement the ‘National Child Protection Policy’, a main task assigned to the NCPA.
“The NCPA was established in 1999 to formulate policy on the prevention of child abuse and the protection and treatment of children who are victims of such abuse. However, the Authority had failed to implement the said policy effectively even by the date of this report. It was observed that the Authority had failed to effectively take steps to regulate school transport service, empower the civil society in protecting children and take relevant measures with regard to victims of abuse. This report confirms that a necessity of ensuring the protection of children had arisen as the Authority had failed in its role,” the report stated.
The formulation of the National Child Protection Policy commenced after the lapse of 10 years of the Authority’s establishment following instructions given by the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) in 2009. After an inordinate delay, the Policy saw the light of day only in October 2019, 10 years since the work began.
According to the number of cases received to the NCPA, the audit report has identified Colombo, Gampaha, Kurunegala and Galle as high risk districts for child abuse.
The report further said that cases had not been filed for 55 per cent of the complaints submitted to the Attorney General within the previous 10 years.
It also noted that there were 159 vacancies among the 527 approved number of cadre in the NCPA as at last year.
