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| Saturday, 18 October 2003 |
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Jaffna a ground for base culture - State Counsel Kandasamy Jaffna special correspondent "Jaffna which was considered a citadel of refine culture has deteriorated into a fertile ground for the proliferation of base culture. It has devolved on all of us to wake up and sow the seeds of moral values, divine virtues and exalted culture to reap the harvest of a virtuous society", said Ms Sukanthy Kandasamy, State Counsel speaking at a seminar conducted by the Legal Aid Society, Jaffna in the Jaffna University. She said the twenty years of ethnic war is attributed as the chief cause for the present cultural degeneration in the North. The war has dismembered families and disintegrated the bond of family unity. It has rendered thousands of people homeless. "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" seems to be the mentality of greedy men and women. These elements should be adequately trained and guided to bear the burden of the family and to respect the elders and the teachers. She said that her experience as a State Counsel had given her a chance of conducting cases of rape, abduction and sexual abuse. Such cases have revealed that abandoned houses and solitary dwellings are the haunting grounds of sex perverts. These places should be demolished or rebuilt. Poverty is also and attributable reason for small children to get trapped by brokers who make them the victims of child abuse. The small children mostly orphans have none to care for or anyone to lend support. They are easily enticed with food, money and clothes. She said the present lifestyle of the teenagers is beset with many pitfalls. Their unguided and uncontrolled way of life lead them to topple in the quagmire of licentiousness. The internet, cinemas, TV divert the young from the path or righteousness and virtuous living. The schoolchildren fall prey to the machination of anti social elements. It is the parents at home and teachers in school who could mould the young ones into useful citizens. She pointed out that girls and even young women are being sexually harassed in their place of work. When a girl is sexually abused she often hides such incidents to escape the defamatory gossip in the village and from social stigma. Such incidents should not be hidden. It is a social obligation to detect the sex perverts and bring them before Court, she said. |
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