Asanga Abeygoonasekera
“Tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.” ― Aeschylus
Robert F Kennedy used Aeschylus to explain the need to make life more gentle at a turbulent juncture in history in the 1960s. It is appropriate to echo this statement in light of the savageness that surround us evident from stories one hears on a daily basis.
The world that we live has an ugly side which needs to be addressed through the law and justice mechanisms. This is the society we live in; this is the society our kids are going to grow up in. It is our responsibility to make a change. Stand united and fight against abuse. This was written in the month of June by this author and published at Colombo Telegraph asking to stand for Ajith.
An 18-year-old school girl in Pungudutivu of the Northern Province was gang raped and murdered in the most brutal of ways. This act is a lasting disgrace upon our society. It is not the first of cases as our nation has a high percentage of rape and other forms of sexual abuse. This was written in the month of May.
Recently, yet another incident was reported in Kotadeniyawa. An innocent four and a half year old girl named Seya was strangled and sexually abused. This is another disturbing story among many on our island home. How many children need to face this cruelty for it to be too much? Barbaric acts of such nature need to be punished. It is the right time to seriously consider bringing back capital punishment as we have become a society that rewards violence. According to National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) Chaiman Dr. Natasha Balendra admitted that the legal system in the country had failed to meet out punishment to child abusers the way it should as court cases of this nature would last for about eight to nine years. A comment from Prof.Harendra de Silva regarding Seya’s incident said “people know killing, peddling drugs or other related crimes are not brought to book and a common belief that if they kill someone they would be in a different position in society”.
We hear many disturbing child abuse cases from all around the island and there is a marked rise in such cases in the recent years. In 2011 the Family Health Bureau warned that 10% to 14% of underage girls in Sri Lanka are sexually abused annually. The youngest reported victim of child rape was just four months old. In 2012, GA of Jaffna warned that there are about 600 child abuse cases annually and this culture was not there before the conflict or during the conflict period but has emerged after the conflict.
With all these warnings and incidents it’s important the authorities and civil society act to rectify this situation. A presidential committee should be appointed with immediate effect to come out with recommendations to minimize this situation of child abuse in the country. For this, committee stakeholders from society should give their ideas and members such as Rosy Senanayake should be appointed who had been voicing her opinion on this subject. It’s unfortunate such individuals who could have addressed this pressing issue are not elected to our Parliament. It is shocking to see some individuals who have got a nominal amount of votes and defeated have been appointed to parliament and given portfolios. Still people elect the rich spenders, thugs, drug barons to the parliament now evident since some were clearly identified and named by the public and members of the present Government unfortunately now all part of the National Government.
Since so many Ministers have been appointed it is time to expect from the present cabinet to move the country towards right direction. The investment to maintain the massive cabinet and many more is colossal in this small nation with economic difficulties. The expectation of the people was something else. What is required now is to develop the public institutions and make them efficient and profit making with the competent people assigned for the right positions. To address sexual abuse, the Ministry of Child Affairs and Women’s affairs, Child Protection Authority should be equipped to strengthen society and institutions with proper resources and possess an effective annual budget for operations. However, the core responsibility lies in the hands of every citizen to ensure we educate our sons and daughters, to make this place safe for the next generation.
The entire year was spent to get the governance structure right and appoint the new president and government with a better value system which promised to protect and honour rule of law to punish the corrupt. Now it’s important to act and deliver the expectation of the people.
Poverty is one of the key issues that trigger crime and violence such as to innocent Seya. While the world outside is discussing and investing time in innovation and many more great discussions which you could see few days ago from the Dalian World Economic Forum. As a nation, we should plan our journey towards economic prosperity to double our per capita by 2020 and make our environment safe and sustainable for all.
Thiru / September 18, 2015
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera,
Are you living in your own world?
Don’t you know that the President, the prime minister and their team promised the people before the election to limit the cabinet to 30?
What happened to the promise in a short time? Trashed in the dust bin!
Do you still think this government has any integrity implement any important decisions for good governance?
Too many people are living in their cuckoo world!
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Thiru / September 18, 2015
“A Society That Rewards Violence Will Not Progress”
Exacty,
The Sinhala society let pogroms loose on Tamils again and again from 1956, and in the process misappropriated large tracts of Tamil people’s hard earned land and properties, let alone depriving their lives and dignity:
Has it progressed in the 67 years since independence? No, it has decayed more and more as years pass by!
Sri Lanka is now a failed rogue state in the world of nations, and the international community has stepped in to set it on the right path respecting the rights of all peoples inhabiting the island from time immemorial.
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Pacs / September 18, 2015
It looks like the child abusers are moving to south.
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Ram / September 19, 2015
In fact the Bishop of Mannar’s ‘disappeared’ are returning to holiday here and organise such vulgarity.
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Native Vedda / September 19, 2015
Ramuuuuuuuuuuuuu
“In fact the Bishop of Mannar’s ‘disappeared’ are returning to holiday here and organise such vulgarity.”
Could you give me the names and contact details. I want to meet them and verify your claim.
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Pacs / September 18, 2015
discipline and moral has disappeared with the foreign remitted money. aid money aid houses. spend all the money for liquor, and indulgence and say u r poor . There are so many to give you free house and free food. and free things for the poor
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Sellam / September 18, 2015
A Society that promotes violence and rewards violence will not sustain themselves for a long time let alone progress. That is what Rajapaksa government did and the present government is doing towards the Tamils. If there is no hard power available to crush this immoral and heartless society, there will be a natural hard strong power which would erase this society from the face of the Earth.
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Bravo / September 19, 2015
The governments are rewarding the violators, murderers, rapists and racists. Everything is collapsing including the rule of law, governance, except the violence. There is not even a token of governance. Rulers don’t know what they are really doing.
All these inquiries and commissions are just to fool the masses. No one is going to be punished, even Gota and the gang. So just forget about other criminals. Have they punished any one so far ? no…they will never !
All are playing games my dear country men..just political games..survival and cheating games.
SLFP, UPFA, UNP, JVP, JHU, …all these political rascals are the same. Narrow minded, racially biased uncultured, inhuman, pretending to be religious, good for nothing opportunistic morons and frogs ! These bunch of thugs do not care about Lanka or the citizen. They are just ruining everything good we all had.
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Ram / September 19, 2015
” A Society That Rewards Violence Will Not Progress “
The prime example being the US, where you could be shot in the back for the crime of being Black.
Thirty years of violence and criminality was at last brought to a halt by the people who are no longer appreciated by the citizens. Today they are ‘neutral’ if not actually on the side of the LTTE perps.
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Native Vedda / September 19, 2015
Ramuuuuuuuu
“The prime example being the US, where you could be shot in the back for the crime of being Black.”
Following the example set by USA do you want to bring some Blacks from wherever they are and shoot them in order to maintain parity status in killing innocent people?
We have had enough experience in shooting innocent civilians being shot in their back since 5th April 1971.
“Today they are ‘neutral’ if not actually on the side of the LTTE perps.”
The people had no choice but to be neutral when terror was unleashed on them by the state security apparatus, JVP, LTTE and other sundries.
They will stay neutral as long as the terror remains.
Until 8th Jan 2015 people opened their mouth only feed themselves.
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