The shadow of the SINISTER

Ishara JAYAWARDANE

Save The Children Member Service and Advocacy, Director Menaca Calyaneratne	Save The Children Member Service and Advocacy, Director Menaca Calyaneratne

Child Prostitution is one of the ugliest crimes in the world and one of the blackest sins. It is a wrecker of lives and is damnable. Surely its very stench must seep into hell. Daily News met up with the people who matter to discuss this serious and perverse problem.

"When talking about the seriousness of this problem, it appears that the numbers have gone up in the last decade or so. During the war, transit places for soldiers like Anuradhapura had high numbers of Child sex workers. However at the end of the war, as tourism is booming, the trend seems to have shifted back to the coastal areas. Both girls and boys are at risk of being lured or forced into this trade," said Save The Children Member Service and Advocacy, Director Menaca Calyaneratne.

Children under the age of 14 in particular are targeted by pedophiles. "It destroys their childhood and damages their personality and any opportunity to reach their full potential. They are at risk of getting sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. One thing that can be done to combat this problem is to ensure that children do not drop out of school. A good education will enable children to avoid being lured into this trade. Laws should be implemented to the letter when it comes to those who exploit children in this trade. Particularly in the tourism industry, parents need to have better options when it comes to earning money, instead of selling their children for sex."

The long term consequences of Child prostitution is frightening. "Using children for sex is indeed abuse. We will have generations of abused children. The damage to them physically and mentally is irreparable. In addition to that Sri Lanka will be at risk of becoming a nation which has citizens with HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases . So in the short term, child prostitution will bring money to the family, but in the long run the damage to the country is greater.

Save the Children gets to know about possible cases of Child Prostitution from local organizations and the police. "Soliciting child sex workers is punishable by law and one could be imprisoned for up to 20 years. Victims are treated as children in the eyes of the law. Most of them are placed in either State homes for children or voluntary homes. However, there is a severe shortage of counselors to support affected children. The new children's magistrate's court is taking measures to speed up cases for children. But in some cases it takes a long time. Sometimes the parents are responsible for coercing children into prostitution. Then the situation becomes very difficult. Most often, parents continue to employ children in sex work and these cases never get reported."

There are of course training programmes for those who work with children that covers working with sexually abused children. "In addition to that we set up community level child protection groups to keep vigil on potential risks. We support the National Child Protection Authority and the Department of Probation and Child Care Services in their mandated work. We do hope to expand our programmes to the coastal areas. Compared to the last decade I think there is an increase. This usually happens with rapid development in any country. But it is not correct to think that it is only the tourists ( foreigners) who solicit child prostitutes. There are locals who use children for sexual activity as well."

Causes

When determining the causes of Child Prostitution one cannot clearly say that it is only poverty. "But we also need to note that there is trafficking within the country where young children are brought with the promise of employment. That is linked to poverty. Often what happens is sexually abused children invariably drop out of school due to stigma and maltreatment by family and community. They run away in search of jobs and end up as child sex workers; a trade which one finds difficult to get out of." In certain areas, there are generations of child prostitutes. In the 80's and 90's Sri Lanka was known as a paradise for pedophiles. Children who were abused then are parents now. They know no other trade but prostitution. So the trade continues from generation to generation.

The pedophile rings are also very strong locally and internationally. So countries need to work across borders to stop child prostitution. While working towards making arrests in the country, we need to collaborate more and more with Interpol to track perpetrators. Particularly the Dept of Police need continues training, information and technology to track these criminals. Civil society needs to be more vigilant to curb child sex trade. Daily News also spoke to Retired Chief Inspector of Police WDT Wijesena who was previously the Officer In Charge of the Special Police Investigation Unit, National Child Protection Authority.

"Actually this is one of the major problems in Sri Lanka. It severity was noticeable during the period of 2002- 2005. When I worked in the NCPA police unit we had to launch some special investigations and detections related to Child Prostitution, specially focused on sexual and commercial child exploitation.

Some special detections/ investigations were launched in that period to combat the situation. We acted under the Chairman of the NCPA during that period to combat local pedophiles as well as the foreign pedophiles. In the case of children who were subjected to child prostitution we had some experience in coastal areas. In those areas some children were subjected to child pornography and blue film productions. We have detected several cases and nabbed several foreign pedophiles who were in the act of sexually abusing our Sri Lankan boys who were provided by the local guides who have taken money. One of the positive and fruitful detection method was the Cyber Surveillance and detection unit at NCPA. And one such foreign pedophile who intended to visit Sri Lanka would sometime send a message through the internet asking for Sri Lankan children for his sexual desires.

This message was detected by the NCPA Cyber unit. Discreet investigations have been conducted and some decoys have been deployed to trap those pedophiles after arriving in Sri Lanka and actually there were some landmark detections conducted in this area and some of these foreign pedophiles were nabbed. They were prosecuted in Sri Lanka and in their own countries. They were convicted. I recall one such case conducted by NCPA, the perpetrator was prosecuted in UK and convicted and sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment. After those investigations and detections some foreign websites have been banned. Specially Gay Teens of Sri Lanka which was utilized for this purpose, that website was banned," said Wijesena.

Sex workers

Regarding commercial and sexual exploitation, Wijesena said further action will have to be taken specially in Coastal areas. Because when the foreign pedophiles arrive in Sri Lanka normally the local guides are in the habit of approaching them and arranging Sri Lankan boys for their sexual desires. "In that case the NCPA is launching some discreet investigation to nab them because firstly we will have to collect information and subsequently we will have to arrange the detections, collect evidence. It is a long process.

NCPA is good enough to tackle those things." During his time on the basis of information gathered during his period in duty, Wijesena recalled that the age group normally targeted by pedophiles in case of boys were around 12 - 15. "We can be satisfied about the prompt action taken by our law enforcement officers in Sri Lanka. Compared to other Asian Countries our situation is not bad. In countries like Thailand their sexual exploitation is higher than our country.

In order to combat this problem we must reactive the Cyberwatch on line detection. Because it is very effective and there should be a special monitoring unit to identify the foreign pedophiles arriving in Sri Lanka. Recently NCPA has suggested to maintain a proper register of convicted pedophiles. This is one of the most important things to implement in Sri Lanka. Cyberwatch can identify foreign as well as local pedophiles. So it has to be reimplemented. The entire career of a child will be affected. Once a child has been subjected to prostitution or any other sexual offense it will affect his or her entire life."

Now at NCPA, there is a child helpline 1929. Each and every citizen is at liberty to provide information to the NCPA related to all kinds of child abuse especially for child prostitution. "Once the information is received by the law enforcement officer the investigations are commenced under the criminal procedure courts and they are dealt with the existing law.

Most of the child abuse offenses are indictable offenses- cases handled by the Attorney General. Recently the Attorney General Department with the collaboration of the police department have taken action to accelerate these criminal cases especially related to child abuse investigation. That is a good sign. Punishments range from rigorous imprisonment and the fine. The mandate of the NCPA provides protection, prevention and treatment for the victims. There are special counselors trained for these counseling methods specially at the police Women and Children desk."

According to Wijesena in the year 2009 there was a committee to identify the important amendments to the law to combat child prostitution as well as child abuse cases called Juvenile Justice Reform Committee. "I had the opportunity to go before that committee and made some suggestions in that committee also. Child abuse offenses are not a mandatory requirement of the public to report to police stations.

According to the existing law of our country under section 21A of the Criminal Procedure code the offenses which are included has a mandatory requirement as reporting to the police. Not a single child abuse case is included in that provision. There are 13 offenses that have been identified as grave child abuse offenses. Those offenses have to be included in the mandatory reporting requirement.

It has to be done - each and every citizen is bound to report offenses which have come to his/her attention. Recently NCPA has suggested to maintain a register regarding the convicted child abuse offenders where their fingerprints are taken and recorded by the crime record division of the police department in this process prevention of crimes ordinance need to be amended.

Though I am retired from the police department and NCPA, I am still engaged in the child protection process. Occasionally I am called by the police academy to deliver lectures."