(UTV | COLOMBO) – Child abusers will be given maximum punishment and laws will be revised accordingly, Defence Secretary Maj. Gen. (Retd) Kamal Gunaratne said.
“Children need to be safeguarded from all forms of abuse and it is a must that we create a secure and safe environment for children”, the Defence Secretary said. He expressed these views speaking at a meeting jointly organized by the Defence Ministry and the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA), held at the Ministry, yesterday (27). The Defence Secretary said discussions were already held to form vigilant committees in schools to protect schoolchildren from drug abuse.
Maj.Gen. Gunaratne stressed the need of revising penalties and punishments to give the child abusers maximum punishment as the existing laws were softer and ineffective to do justice to the crime that they committed.
The Child Protection Act No. 50 was passed in the Parliament in1998. Efforts to devise a policy on child protection were delayed until May 2019, and today’s meeting aims at establishing a Technical Committee for the implementation of a five-year plan of ‘Child Protection Policy -2019’, as mandated in the President’s election manifesto ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’.
The National Implementation Plan on Child protection is to be enforced and supervised under the National implementation Committee in which stakeholders including, Defence, Education, Health, Justice, Social Welfare, Labour, Tourism, Media Ministries are to work together in achieving designated implementation objectives.
Under the declared implementation objectives, the Defence Ministry is to ensure realisation of three objectives intended at creating a child friendly and protective environment which mainly focuses on effective and timely law enforcement through the Police.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that 47,177 complaints relating to child abuse had been received by the NCPA between 2015 to 2019. In addition, the NCPA’s hotline 1929 has reportedly received an average of 550,000 complaints annually.
NCPA Chairman Prof. Muditha Vidanapathirana, Deputy Chairperson (NCPA), former High Court Judge Sujatha Alahapperuma, NCPA Director General Anoma Siriwardene also made presentations.