| Attorney General shrugs off child sex abuse claims |
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Tamil Guardian 29 July 2012 |
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Sri Lanka’s Attorney General has dismissed claims that sexual abuse of children in Sri Lanka was on the rise, suggesting that the majority of cases were consensual relationships between teenagers.
Attorney General Palitha Fernando, who is Sri Lankan government's chief legal advisor and its primary lawyer in the Supreme Court, told Lakbima News,
“But I must tell you, very rarely do we get cases where abuse is committed by force, violent abuse… where, let’s say, a girl is dragged into some place and raped. Those cases are very rare and we need to view them very seriously.”
“In a situation not like that we see that the boy is about 18 and the girl is about 15… All those cases are also reported as cases of child abuse. But actually those are not cases where any sort of violence is involved.”
Instead, Fernando insisted that parents and teachers must do more, rather than the law enforcement authorities adding that legislation had already been amended in 1995 to deal with child abuse. He further blamed growing media awareness which he claimed had led to “even slight cases of child abuse are reported”.
His comments follow Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s insistence that rape and abuse had not risen in the country, instead blaming the media for “improper” reporting.
Recently, “several cases” of sexual abuse of children had been identified, including those involving ruling coalition politicians. Earlier this year, doctors in Jaffna described an “alarming rise” in sexual abuse cases, a US State Department report stated that boys were being trafficked into prostitution and the military was accused of sexual violence against women in the North-East.
An ICG report from December also alleged the women were at “greater risk of gender-based violence” due to the military presence in the North-East, which drew this response from Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the US.
Also see our earlier post:
Murder and rape leads to fall in British tourists (19 Feb 2012)
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