COLOMBO (UCAN): The authorities in Sri Lanka are being put under more pressure to act on sexual violence against women and children from all quarters of society with the kidnap of a five-year-old girl in the western part of the island nation on September 11.
On September 18, Mothers and Daughters of Lanka demonstrated in the capital city of Colombo demanding that the authorities implement laws to stop sexual violence against women and girls.
Nalini Ratnaraja said that one of the pressing problems is that the legal system does not move quickly against perpetrators of gender violence.
“There should be a mechanism to speed up the trials,” she said. “Sometimes it takes more than eight years for a case to be heard.”
She added that the courts are also quick to grant bail to suspected perpetrators. “We need a women’s commission to focus on violence against women and girls, and set up a special court to investigate sexual abuses and rape cases quickly,” she said.
The National Child Protection Authority says there are currently 4,000 child abuse cases pending in Sri Lankan courts. This year alone, the parliament-mandated body has received around 6,500 complaints—254 of them rape allegations—and another 184 cases involving grave sexual abuse, which under Sri Lankan law includes sexual offences apart from rape.
Good Shepherd Sister Angela Fernando, who attended the September 18 rally, said Sri Lanka’s history of conflict has contributed to today’s problem.
“Our society is traumatised in the postwar scenario,” she said. “Poverty, unemployment, breaking the family structure… all these reasons influence this violence.”
Sister Fernando said Sri Lanka needs more counselling, support systems and prevention programmes to tackle the problem and believes that the Church can also do more in speaking out on the issue.
“At a Church level, there are awareness programmes… within the parish level,” Sister Fernando said. “I don’t think that the local Church comes to the street and raises its voice against these grave problems.”
The president, Maithripala Sirisena, said on September 18 that he was prepared to impose the death penalty in certain cases. Sri Lanka has the death penalty on its books, but has not carried out an execution in decades.
Lakshan Dias, a human rights lawyer, responded saying that the death penalty is not the right solution for the problem.
“Hanging someone is unacceptable,” he said. “There may be innocent people (hanged).”
In May, the gang rape and murder of a 17-year-old schoolgirl in northern Sri Lanka also set off outrage in the country. At the time, the National Child Protection Authority called it “one in a long line of cases of brutal sexual violence against women and children.”