Child Rights awareness programme for police

COLOMBO: A programme to empower police on child rights organised by the Monitoring and Review division of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka was held at the Ananda Jayasekara Conference Hall, Tourist Police, Polonnaruwa on July 26 and 27.

There were about 58 participants from the police stations of Polonnaruwa district. Special attention was given to the officers of the Women and Children’s desk of the Police stations in selecting participants.

The Commissioner, Justice D. Jayawickrama, retired judge of Court of Appeal was the chief guest of this programme. Chief guest Justice D. Jayawickrema addressed the gathering.

He explained the duties and responsibilities of the police, the importance of effective and efficient service of a police officer and the role played in the civil society by the Police.

North Central Province DIG Kingsly Ekanayake, and Polonnaruwa Division SSP Jayantha Wickremasinghe assisted in organising this programme. SSP Jayantha Wickramasinghe said “this is a good opportunity for the police to develop their knowledge on human rights as an officer who is holding different roles such as a Police officer, a state officer and a citizen”.

He thanked the Human Rights Commission for organizing these types of programmes for Police.

The objectives of the programme were to provide awareness on international standards and local laws relating to Child Rights, to update the knowledge on new laws and recent amendments to the law on child rights, to develop the skills of the participants already possess and change their attitudes, to minimize human / child rights violations in the country, to identify the child rights violations, abuses and to identify the weaknesses and loopholes in the field of child rights and to plan programmes to address the same, to develop the collaboration among the institutions which are dealing with Child Rights.

Lectures on various topics were delivered in this workshop.

The lecture on Domestic Laws on Child Rights and its practical usage was conducted by Nimal Punchihewa, Attorney-at-law, and Additional Secretary of the HRC.

He explained the offences against children, local laws on the protection of children, Police investigations and complaints regarding offences against children etc. He paid attention to the areas where there are problems for Police officers in implementing law.

International Standards on Child Rights and present legal condition in Sri Lanka was the topic for the lecture conducted by Attorney-at-law Thilani Rajapakse, Director Monitoring and Review of the Human Rights Commission which discussed the introduction of the Child Rights Convention, description on the United Nations Committee on Child Rights, brief introduction on the treaty body reporting mechanism, new developments after ratifying the CRC, concluding observations of the UN Human Rights Committee on the last country report sent by Sri Lanka on the CRC, discussion of the practical problems in implementing the local laws relating to child rights, importance in active participation of the civil society and civil organizations to eradicate all forms of violations of child rights, and the difficulty in obtaining islandwide network of statistics on child rights violations and the need for such system.

Polonnaruwa Police Division SSP Jayantha Wickremasinghe made his lecture on how to use professional ethics to build a public friendly police.

Here he discussed violation of human rights in discharging police powers, law in enforcing power in relation to arrest, detention, both aiding and abating are prohibited by law, restriction in relation to confession, how to act competently and tactfully in investigations, how to build a public friendly Police.

The lecture on medical aspects of Child Rights was conducted by Dr. Himal Devappriya, Assistant Judicial Medical Officer, Polonnaruwa Hospital, and consisted of the following sub-topics. He focused on the responsibilities of the Judicial Medical Officer and the assistance of the Police in relation to Child Rights violation cases.

The Role of the Human Rights Commission was discussed by a senior Investigation officer J. M Foumi. He explained the powers and functions of the HRC and how to maintain institutional relations with the institutions in the process of protection and promoting human rights.

The participants were divided into groups and were given case studies which covered all the lectures. Each group was given adequate time for discussion and one participant from each group presented their answer.

At the end of the programme, the participants requested the HRC to hold these types of trainings to other officers of the Police. Part of the expenses of this programme were borne by the UNICEF.