A brighter future for all girl children

It’s time to act:

Protecting the girl child from abuse

By Carol Aloysius

Living in an increasingly violent world with few protective structures to defend her, the girl child has never been more vulnerable to abuse than she is today.

Whether physical, sexual or psychological, it is girls more than their male counterparts that suffer when it comes to violence, discrimination and deprivation of their rights.

Girls grow up to be women, mothers, homemakers and income earners. Yet, despite the numerous Charters and laws enacted on behalf of women everywhere from the 90s, there seems to be very little let-up when it comes to actual physical and sexual violence on women and girls.

Violence against girl children begins in their homes when fathers commit incest on their daughters, and brothers on their sisters. This is most evident in the estate sector where a drunken father would sexually abuse his daughter even in the presence of his wife. So grave is the problem that many upcountry estate mothers send their daughters to Colombo to work as domestics just to protect their virginity till they attain puberty and are ready for an early marriage.

Sexual abuse does not stop there, however. Instead, often the master of the house abuses the girl in the absence of his wife, threatening the child he would punish her severely if she informed his wife. The girl is also abused by the sons who too threaten to punish her if she informs their mother. When she finally returns home, too frightened to tell her mother the truth, she is rejected by her husband when he discovers that she is not a virgin and is ostracised from her community.

Offence

Employing children under 14 years as domestic labourers is now considered a criminal offence. However, the practice still continues in many forms for young people between 14 and 18 years who, in the eyes of the law, are still considered children.

A burden too heavy for her shoulders

Peering out, what does she  see?

Hence, the recent call by former Vice Chancellor of the Colombo University and Emeritus Professor of Law Dr Savitri Goonesekere to ban the employment of persons between 14 and 18 years in domestic service, is both timely and a step in the right direction. She was quoted as saying that females in this age group ran a high risk of being subject to sexual harassment in domestic service.

Making these observations at a panel discussion on the ‘Girl Child in Sri Lanka’ organised by the United Nations at the Institute of Policy Studies to mark the International Day of the Girl Child, Dr Goonesekere called for the amendment of the Employment of Women and Young Persons and Children’s Act, to add Domestic Service as a hazardous occupation, pointing out that not only girls, but male children in domestic service would also receive protection under such an amendment.

Labour Commissioner General Pearl Weerasinghe, who was at the discussion, is reported to have said there were 51 hazardous forms of occupation listed by the International Labour Organization. Giving a picture of the Lankan working child, he noted that child labour prevailed in domestic service, on the streets, in shops, garages, restaurants, as begging and in family businesses. Since they belonged to the non-formal sector, it was pointed out that such work was difficult to monitor, and those who use children for their own ends including parents know how to circumvent the law.

Problems

The girl child’s problems do not end there. Take the case of Ramani who had ambitions of becoming a teacher. Her dreams ended when she was forced to drop out of school at Grade 7 when her mother asked her to stay home and look after her siblings, while she (the mother) worked as a casual labourer sweeping the streets.

When the school principal visited the girl’s house and insisted that she be sent back to school, her mother asked, “Who will keep the home fires burning, now that my husband is no longer living (he passed away last month)?” Since the school authorities were unable to provide a child-minder for the family, Ramani now languishes at home, studying by herself and still dreaming of a future career as a teacher.

Ramani’s plight is shared by hundreds of young children, mostly girls, in this country, whose potential to improve themselves remain an unfulfilled dream through no fault of theirs, and largely due to the lack of a proper child-minding network.

Penalties

True, we have laws that make it compulsory for children to attend school till they are 14. True, we have enhanced penalties for rapists, for those who dabble in pornography and for those who lure children to commercial sex. Yet, the fact is that the number of victims (girls and boys) continues to spiral, with an estimated 30,000 or more commercial sex workers in the country of whom a large number are young children.

Many children are forced into labour to keep the home fires burning

Passing Acts and signing Charters to protect women and children, girls in particular are not enough. We need to give teeth to the laws we already have and make sure they are put into action.

Take our laws against domestic violence. Although the official count of reported cases, (such as those of children in domestic service) has tumbled due to amendments to this law, we all know that the Lankan woman continues to suffer violence perpetrated on her by her husband or partner.

The fault lies in our cultural practices which only promote passive acceptance of such violence and the shame women face when the truth is exposed, fear of revenge from her husband and most of all her shame of being divorced. Added to that is the fact that most domestic violence incidents take place among low income families where the education level of the woman is low and she does not have any skills which would enable her to leave her husband and start life on her own.

Empower

The need of the hour, therefore, is to give these women tools, life skills and education to empower them so that they need no longer be subservient to those who perpetrate such violence on them. Such education must begin early, starting with the girl child.

The fact that teen pregnancies are on a high even in conservative communities such as Batticaloa, as noted by a leading child welfare authority recently, calls for more education on reproductive health and the facts of life. It also calls for more attention to the girl’s health status. A malnourished, anaemic girl is likely to give birth to a low weight baby who could be stunted and have a low IQ.

For child activists and women activists, the time to act is NOW... Tomorrow may be too late, for our future citizens in general and the girl child in particular.