'Let us renew our commitment to children'

by P. Krishnaswamy

Fifty per cent of street children in Sri Lanka are in the age group of 10-16 who are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse, involvement in drug trafficking, prostitution and other anti-social activities, according to a recent study done by the Kelaniya University's Department of Mass Communication said Walter Ladduwahetty, President of the Child Protection Society of Ceylon (CPS).

Ladduwahetty was speaking at the 74th Annual General Meeting of the society held last Friday at the auditorium of the Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration, Colombo 7.

Indian High Commissioner Nirupama Rao, the chief guest, spoke on all steps which her government had introduced for the welfare of the neglected children back home and all preventive measures being implemented. India's Deputy High Commissioner A. Manickam was also present.

This year the Human Rights Commission (HRC) has received 141 reports of child recruitment in the North and East of which at least 25 children were under the age of 15, the youngest being only 11 years, Ladduwahetty said.

The UNICEF as at October 31 had documented over 5,081 cases of underage recruitment since signing the Ceasefire Agreement, he said, adding that many would be the cases not reported to the HRC through fear of reprisal. What these children, who will soon become killing machines, will turn out to be when they grow up into adulthood is impossible even to imagine, he said.

Ladduwahetty also said the CPS was playing its part in the national endeavour in their own way. They can cater to only about 100 children in their two houses - one for boys at Maharagama and the other for girls at Rukmalgama - and they manage to supplement the meagre Government grant with the generous contributions made by their donors and well-wishers.

Challenges were there to be met and overcome by the members of the CPS and they were doing their best for the well-being of a small number of children, he said.

It was their hope that with the education imparted to the children in the care of the CPS, they will, when they leave the CPS homes, have sufficient discipline, adequate skills and good values imbibed in them so that their lives will be fulfilling and meaningful, Ladduwahetty said.

Ladduwahetty also said, "The children under the care of the CPS are sent from the Juvenile Court and from the Department of Probation and Child Care Services. They are children with problems - problems not generally of their own creation but they are victims of the society in which they were nurtured.

They are children deprived of a house to live in and deprived of their right to education. Some of them undergo harrowing experiences and some even commit suicide. The social and family dislocation have caused incalculable damage.

"The teenagers need understanding more than money. Giving a teenager a Rs. 1,000 note as pocket money for the night is the green light to disaster, he said.

"Child labour is a very serious problem the world over. It is a pervasive problem in today's world, but not a hopeless one. One out of six children in the world or in other words some 246 million children are involved in child labour.

"Let us renew our commitment to the children of Sri Lanka if not the world. The happier we make their tender years, the more fulfilling their lives will be." The objects of the CPS include preventing cruelty to children, neglect of children and exploitation of child labour and rescuing them from immoral surroundings and shielding them from immoral contamination, it was stated at the AGM.

New office-bearers for 2005 with Walter Ladduwahetty as the President were elected. A concert by children of the Boys' and Girls' Homes was also performed.