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| Sunday, 2 October 2005 |
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Editor, Sunday Observer. E-mail: [email protected] Snail mail : Sunday Observer, 35, D.R.Wijewardana Mawatha, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Telephone : 94 11 2429239 / 2331181 Fax : 94 11 2429230 Save our children Yesterday Sri Lanka celebrated Universal Children's Day. These commemorations have become a ritual over the years. Mostly they provide a platform for politicians to brag about their achievements or put forward their political agendas. We believe time has come for us to move on to serious introspection and review the state of our children in order to charter future programs for ensuring the best for them. Children are our future and our precious inheritance. Rather than taking few isolated issues like child labour, child conscription and child abuse we should delve into the root causes that generate the totality of problems affecting children through a more holistic approach. It is true Sri Lanka has achieved much more than many other developing countries in many fields like education and health. We have reduced the under five-mortality rate from 133 in 1960 to 15 in 2003. We have 100 percent primary school enrolment. We have also to remember that all these were achieved under a welfare regime that guaranteed free education and free health services. Now under the open economy both are restricted, if not by law but by poverty. Reduced investments in the state health sector that is the only available option for the poor are sure to affect them adversely. Already budget allocations for the health sector in Sri Lanka are below the South Asian average. Nearly one-fifth of the population lives below the poverty line. The incidence of poverty is more pronounced in the rural and estate sectors as well as in the War zone in the North and East. The so-called development has been so skewed that the Western province enjoys all the plums giving credence to the slogan "Kolombata kiri Gamata kekiri" (Plums for Colombo Crumbs for the village). Though we have assured universal primary school enrolment, poverty has forced over 60, 000 children to drop out of schooling at an early stage. Malnutrition is considerable among poor children, especially those in the estate and rural sectors. . The spiraling cost of living tends to aggravate the problem of malnutrition further. The incidence of child labour is also widespread. ILO statistics for the year 2000 revealed 35,000 economically active children between the ages 10 and 14. Many children are employed in shops, in agriculture, in fishing and as domestic servants. Further nearly 12,000 children are trafficked and prostituted to paedophiles by various persons and criminal groups. Child prostitutes in Sri Lanka are estimated to be nearly 20,000. There is also the phenomenon of child soldiers due to the conscription policy of the LTTE. It is estimated that 40 percent of their fighting cadre constitute boys and girls between 9 and 18 years of age. We also have street children who are often at the mercy of criminal gangs. There are also the displaced children. There are about a million internally displaced children due to war and the tsunami. Most of them have their education disrupted. Child abuse is much more prevalent than the instances described earlier. There are also less known areas of child abuse such as those that occur at home and in schools. Most of them may be due to the ignorance of parents and teachers as to what constitutes child abuse. The high incidence of single parent homes due to war, violence, and parent emigration for jobs also causes increased domestic child abuse. Then there is child abuse by the media. Violence and sex on TV, cinema and the Internet as well as pornographic and semi-pornographic material in the print media continue to affect the children psychologically. Unfortunately there is no campaign against such practices. On the other hand, those behind these unhealthy media practices justify them under the guise of free media or freedom of expression. Those few who oppose are condemned as old-fashioned cultural czars who are unable to value the dominant avantgardist culture of global capitalism. The ultimate causes of all these phenomena lie in the underdevelopment of our society and the cultural degradation it is undergoing in the face of the advance of cultural imperialism. What is needed is a holistic approach, a new path of development that couples rapid technological advancement with a healthy cultural program. |
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