Solid education system for IDP children
Statement of Disaster Management and Human Rights Ministry Secretary
Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha responding to the Special Representative for
Children and Armed Conflict
Sri Lanka welcomes the statement of the Special Representative for
Children and Armed Conflict, and registers again its gratitude that Ms
Coomaraswamy made crystal clear, when other branches of the UN seemed to
condone this, her condemnation of the LTTE for breaching national and
international law in its recruitment of child soldiers.
Sound education for IDP children - challenging task ahead.
File photo |
Now that the conflict is over, and clearer information is emerging of
the appalling behaviour of the LTTE in the area they controlled, we
trust the United Nations will call to account the UNICEF officials who
condoned recruitment of 17- year-old on the grounds that terrorist
legislation permitted this. We call on the UN too to ensure
accountability of those who failed to disclose the fact that the LTTE
were recruiting first one member, and then two, from each family in
their thrall.
Happily senior UN officials in Sri Lanka now are working positively
with the Sri Lankan Government to overcome this scourge of child
soldiers: UNICEF has been promoting the release and rehabilitation of
all child soldiers, while ILO is working with our Ministry to produce a
framework for the rehabilitation of ex-combatants. Rehabilitation
programs will be implemented by the new Commissioner General for
Rehabilitation, who will work under the Ministry of Justice.
With regard to the Special Representative’s statement, we share her
hopes for rapid improvement in the situation, and trust we will be able
to complete without impediment the programs planned in this regard. We
also believe it necessary to draw attention to positive aspects of the
situation, as has been noted with regard to conditions elsewhere.
We are pleased that health facilities have been provided
satisfactorily to children as well as others, and that we were able to
reduce the appalling malnutrition rates suffered by those who were under
the control of the LTTE. It is sad that these our fellow citizens were
deprived even of the high energy biscuits that we enabled UNICEF to take
to those regions, which were grabbed instead by the LTTE to sustain
armed cadres.
We should also stress the continuation of education at high levels,
though I am sorry the inferior technology this Council now uses will not
allow me to share the photographs from the welfare centres that I am
holding up. Sri Lanka must be the only country in the world that
conducted a public examination, the ‘O’ Levels, even in the midst of
conflict, and parents made sure that many children took the exam despite
efforts by the LTTE to promote a boycott. Last month we held the ‘A’
Level Examination in the Centres, having provided teaching for this in
preceding months.
We hope therefore that, we will soon be able to ensure that these
children enjoy the fruits of the solid educational system we have in
place, and which we extended even to areas temporarily under terrorist
control. |