Keep a vigilant eye on montessori children - NCPA

by Jayampathy JAYASINGHE

The National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) has warned parents to keep a vigilant eye on montessori children who travel to school and back in hired passenger vans without a guardian. Children have now become victims of sexual assault of some school van drivers, according to the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA).

The National Child Protection Authority has launched an investigation following a complaint by the parents of a montessori child that his three- year-old son who travels in a passenger coach was sexually molested by its 62-year-old driver, NCPA sources told the Sunday Observer".

According to the NCPA, the child who did not have any knowledge of any sexual encounter had innocently told his parents of the ordeal that he suffered when the coach driver asked him to perform certain perverted acts.

Following the shocking disclosure, the parents were directed by the police to lodge a complaint at the National Child Protection Authority for an investigation.

The parents told the NCPA that their son usually returns to the coach long before other children when the montessori class ends around 12 noon.

The other school session ends around 1.30 p.m. According to the NCPA the boy had been sexually molested in the coach.

NCPA sleuths after recording the statements of the parents produced the child before the Colombo South Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) for a physical examination.

Following the JMO’s report, NCPA sleuths conducted investigations. The JMO in his report had stated that the boy had been sexually molested. “This was the first occasion where we received a complaint of this type against a school coach driver. We have instructed our officers to arrest the coach driver and produce him in court,” NCPA sources said.

According to a survey carried out among 2,000 university students in Sri Lanka it had been found that 19 percent of the male students and 8.3 percent of the female students had been abused when they were children. It was also revealed that a majority of abused male students had been abused by someone known to them.