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Scrutiny by Hemantha Warnakulasuriya

A child stood beside the witness-box. The court has been cleared except the lawyers and court officials anxiously waiting for the girl to respond to the questions posed by the prosecution. She was sobbing in the witness box refusing to answer the questions put to her.

There is a middle aged balding man on the dock. The Magistrate had to intervene. Even the kind words uttered by the Magistrate pleading with the girl to tell her story was of no avail. The court had no alternative but to adjourn the proceedings. The man got down from the dock slowly to be taken to the remand cell. The girl suddenly cried aloud and ran towards the man who was being taken away by the jail guards. The girl cried and held the hand of the accused and said 'Thathe'. The mother who was outside came running into the well of the court and took away the girl from the father.

This was an unusual scene, and as I did not know the facts and circumstances that made a girl to testify against her own father, I asked a fellow member of the Bar, who is a regular practitioner in that court what this was all about. He said the girl was the daughter of the man who has raped her when she had just attained puberty. Though the mother was the main witness, she was a condescending observer. The girl has got pregnant by this man and had delivered a child. The mother was carrying her baby. The mother or the innocent girl did not want to testify against the man. This happened about a year ago.

Recently a similar incident was reported when a widow with her only daughter thought of getting married to a man whom she thought would look after her daughter. She replied to an advertisement which appeared in the matrimonial column of a newspaper. The man had two children and his wife had eloped with another man. He wanted a mother for the two children. After the marriage she found that her new husband was the kindest person she had met. Instead of the usual cruel attitude of step-fathers towards a step daughters he went out of his way to fill the vacuum created by the father's death. She found that unlike her deceased husband who came home drunk and assaulted her mercilessly, this man was a teetotaller. She thought that this was the eternal happiness - marriage which in most cases in a mere illusion to most people. The woman got pregnant by this man. He was so worried of sicknesses and ailments associated with pregnancy that he volunteered to cook meals for the children at night. She did not bother her with household chores and continued to cook the meals. But he prepared night cups for every one in the house. One day she had a severe pain in her stomach and got up from her sleep. From what she saw she could not believe her eyes. She saw her own daughter being raped by this man.

She fainted and recovered later and took a stick and beat him. She took the daughter to the police station. The girl refused to divulge anything. Later with great effort on the part of a woman police officer the girl came out with the story. Every night the step-father used to lace the night cup with drugs and gave it to the mother and the male children. They slept till morning. The step-father had abused the girl every day until the mother discovered it.

Undesirable

In cases where a girl relates the story of sexual abuse to the Police, on her complaint, he is taken to court and if the court finds it unsafe to leave the girl with the mother she is usually remanded to fiscal custody to be kept in an authorized home for girls. Unfortunately in most of these homes there are women and girls who have been remanded for various misdemeanours and other offenses. The victims of crime like these innocent girls are kept in these homes and have to mingle with undesirable women and girls. I know of a certain girl who had been the victim of rape by well known film star. She was kept at the Salvation Army. She was the centre of attraction of the other women and girls in the home who often made offending gestures and remarks at this victim of rape. She tried to commit suicide.

It is indeed difficult to comprehend specifically the incestuous relationships that are often reported in the press. It is difficult in today's context to even understand how Sinhalese could indulge in such anomalistic behaviours in a predominantly Buddhist country. The politicians have a common scapegoat. They try to sell idea that it is ill effects of the market economy and Western culture and the idiot box. Is this true?

Robert Knox

In the sixties long before television and the market economy was introduced to Sri Lanka there was a team of experts from the United Nations Health Organisation. At this time the Malthusian Theory of the planet earth exploding at her seams and not being able to cope up with the geometric progression of the population, was rife. There was a concerted effort to control population growth in Third World countries. A team of local experts and sociologists joined this team and undertook research to find out why there was such an explosion of population. They visited rural hamlets in every part of the country and the report made a shocking revelation of the morality of certain sections of the rural population.

According to the report they had no knowledge of birth control and the pill. This was but understandable. But incestuous relationships between the father and the daughter and brother and sister were so common in the rural areas that these people saw nothing wrong in such relationships. One sociologist in the team said that the pattern of sexual relationship in these remote villages specially in the Dry Zone has not changed from the days Robert Knox. Knox arrived in Ceylon in 1695. and went back to England published a book in 1681 called' A Historical Relation of Ceylon - an Island in the East Indies'. The sociologist referred me to page 92 of the book:

"In some cases the man will permit their wives and daughters to lie with other men, that is when intimate friends and great men chanced to lodge at their houses. They commonly will send their wives and daughters to bear them company in their chambers. Neither they reckon their wives to be reckoned as whores for lying with men who are as good or better than themselves. They do not matter or regard whether their wives at their first marriage they were maidens or not and for a small reward they will give their daughter being a maid unto those who desire them".

The sociologist further said that certain police stations in the dry zone are inundated with complaints of incest.

Pretentious

Be that as it may, the time has come for us to carefully think inwardly, shedding our pretentious nonsense of morality and consider the seriousness of child abuse and women's rights in this country. A committee headed by professor Savithri Gunasekera had recommended amendments to the Penal Code to expand the scope of offences of child abuse. It recommended taking away the discretion of judges to impose punishment and made jail term mandatory. Yet the abuse of women and children continues unabated. The victims, in most of these cases tend to be kept in custody for their own safety. They are then taken to court from the house in a prison van.

Need for funds

There are many NGOs who receive large sums of money from donor agencies to look into the violation of the rights of women and children. But unfortunately these funds are spent in maintaining the infrastructure than helping the women and children. In the USA the Social Service Department is one of the biggest agencies of the government. Millions of dollars are spent on social security. In Sri Lanka the Social Service Department has the lowest budget allocation. It is time that substantial amounts of money is allocated to the Department so that a decent homes be maintained in all the important towns in the country for women and children who had been victims of sexual abuse.

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