• Anuradhapura case exposes critical gaps in child guardianship law
• NCPA holds sweeping arrest powers, but experts warn they go unused
• Juvenile Courts cannot appoint personal guardians; Family Court jurisdiction poorly understood
• Cases drag 3–5 years, by which time victims have grown up and lost interest in pursuing justice
• SL has the laws; what it lacks is implementation: Legal experts  

When a 71-year-old monk was arrested over allegations of sexually abusing a minor girl, the outrage that followed, particularly on social media, was significant for several reasons.

Reports emerging from the initial court proceedings indicated that approximately 30 attorneys had appeared on behalf of the accused. For the victim, a minor with no parent in a position to protect her, whose mother was also charged alongside the suspect, no independent legal representation had been formally arranged. 

That contrast pointed to something beyond the specifics of a single case: a structural imbalance at the heart of Sri Lanka’s child protection system, in which the power and resources of the accused routinely outweigh the legal standing of the child.

The accused, Anuradhapura Atamasthana Chief Prelate Pallegama Hemarathana Thera, was arrested while receiving treatment at a private hospital in Colombo and was subsequently remanded by the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court. The case emerged through a separate complaint investigated by the Nittambuwa Police regarding the abduction and unlawful detention of the minor, during which the victim allegedly disclosed a history of sexual abuse.

The victim’s mother was also arrested and charged with human trafficking and aiding and abetting the alleged crimes. Attorneys representing the monk have denied all allegations. The National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) is overseeing the victim’s welfare, while court proceedings remain ongoing.

The case has forced into public view a set of structural questions that Sri Lanka’s legal and child protection establishment has long deferred.

What happens when the guardian is the alleged abuser? Who speaks for the child when the State has the power to act, but repeatedly fails to do so, or responds only after public outrage? What happens when the accused holds significant power while the alleged victim comes from a socially and economically vulnerable background? And why, in a country that experts say has sufficient laws to compel action, does implementation remain so conspicuously absent?

A guardian who cannot protect

Attorney-at-Law Thishya Weragoda, speaking to The Sunday Morning, drew a precise distinction that is often misunderstood in public debate.

Many assume that Juvenile Courts, whose authority derives from the Children and Young Persons Ordinance, are the primary legal protectors of a child. They are not. Courts established under that ordinance do not have the power to appoint a personal guardian for a child. That authority sits with the Family Court, the District Court under Section 23 of the Judicature Act, with procedure governed by Sections 582 and 583 of the Civil Procedure Code.

Under Section 583, any relative or friend of a minor may petition the Family Court to appoint a fit person to take charge of the child. In cases where both parents are allegedly involved in the crime, the question of who takes that initiative becomes critical. 

Weragoda noted that the NCPA and the Department of Probation and Child Care Services had the legal standing to apply for that appointment. “However, to date, this specific legal step has not been taken in the Anuradhapura case,” he observed. “It is only after such an appointment is made that they can formally instruct legal counsel to represent the child’s specific interests.”

Attorney-at-Law Ishara Madushani Jayasena described the framework. “Guardianship of the minor effectively transfers to the State,” she told The Sunday Morning. “Every crime in criminal law is considered an offence against the State. In these instances, it is the NCPA that acts on behalf of the minor victim. Ultimately, the District Court serves as the guardian of the child under the concept of the best interest of the child.” 

Because a minor under 18 cannot legally hold decision-making power, the NCPA is empowered to make legal representations, report facts to courts, and make formal statements on behalf of the victim.

This arrangement mirrors the Guardian ad Litem mechanism formalised in common law jurisdictions such as the UK, the US, Canada, and Australia – a court-appointed legal representative specifically for the child in abuse cases. 

Sri Lanka has the structural basis for something equivalent. Whether it operates as intended is a different matter. At present, Jayasena noted, the gap between what the law permitted and what institutions did remained wide enough to leave a child without a guardian, independent legal counsel, or formal advocate at the moment they needed all three.

Powers on paper

The NCPA itself holds authority that, according to those who have led it, is rarely exercised to its full extent.  

Speaking to The Sunday Morning, NCPA Founder Chairman Prof. Harendra de Silva said: “According to the NCPA Act, the chairperson has the authority to issue orders. During my six years in office, I exercised this power to order the arrest of high-profile individuals, including prominent monks and Members of Parliament, based on evidence. I used this power at least 12 times.”

The chairperson issues written instructions to the Police unit within the NCPA; the suspect may be held for roughly 72 hours before being produced before a court. What Prof. de Silva identified as the problem was not the absence of this power but the absence of will to use it. 

“We have a very powerful act,” he said. “But its effectiveness depends on the push and the will of those in charge. In many State institutions, people prefer to avoid trouble, content to take their salaries and perks without taking the risks necessary to effect change.” 

Weragoda echoed the assessment. “The issue in Sri Lanka is not a lack of laws; it is a failure of implementation,” he said. “Taking action against influential individuals remains a significant challenge within our system.”

Beyond the question of guardianship, Prof. de Silva drew attention to what happened once a case entered the system. The NCPA, he noted, had the legal power to coordinate with any entity – Police, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Provincial Councils – to ensure a child’s welfare. 

During his tenure, he had reportedly used that authority to direct the creation of conditions in which a child’s statement could be taken without coercion, and to place children in secure units such as the ‘Lama Piyasa’ facilities at hospitals in Ragama and Galle, where both physical protection and psychological rehabilitation could be provided. 

Whether those mechanisms were being activated in the current case, he said, depended entirely on whether those in charge were willing to exercise the powers available to them.

Prof. de Silva also pointed to the integrity of the evidence-gathering process. In high-profile cases, he claimed, attempts to influence the child or the family through bribery, sometimes involving millions of rupees, were common. 

In response, specialised recording techniques had been employed during his tenure – wide-angle lenses alongside close-up insets, as well as one-way mirrors to allow judges to observe without being present. 

He also identified a formal gag order and consistent application of existing media law under which identifying a child victim is a criminal offence, carrying a potential custodial sentence, as essential protections that remained inconsistently applied.

The investigation problem

If legal architecture is one weakness, investigative capacity is another, and the two failures, experts agreed, compounded each other in ways that powerful suspects were well positioned to exploit.

Attorney Jayasena did not mince words. “I am not satisfied with the Sri Lanka Police as investigators in child abuse cases,” she said, citing insufficient professional training and investigative mistakes that undermined proceedings before they reached trial. “Many cases are badly affected by a lack of professionalism.”

This failure, she argued, was not merely administrative; it was exploited. Powerful figures facing such allegations routinely retained senior legal counsel to press every procedural and evidentiary weakness in the prosecution’s case. Her proposed solution is structural: a dedicated special investigations unit comprising trained officers assigned exclusively to child abuse cases.

The delays that follow a flawed investigation compound the damage. Obtaining the Attorney General’s instructions – required before a case can be indicted before the High Court – often takes three to five years. During that time, the child victim grows up. 

“By the time the trial finally takes place, many are no longer interested in pursuing the case,” Jayasena charged. “But because the case is treated as a crime against the State, they are still required to come to court and give evidence. If they do not appear, warrants can be issued against them.” 

A system that compels traumatised individuals to revisit their experiences after years of institutional delay, without adequate support along the way, is one that prioritises procedural form over the welfare of the people it claims to protect. Jayasena said she had personally observed many victims lose all interest in the case by the time it reached trial, yet found themselves legally unable to simply walk away.

The ground reality

The procedural failures described by legal experts acquire a different weight when viewed from ground level. 

An official from an NGO with years of frontline experience working alongside the Department of Probation and Child Care Services, Police, and child protection authorities agreed to speak to The Sunday Morning on condition of anonymity, citing documented retaliation against those who speak out, including one officer transferred hundreds of kilometres away for raising concerns internally.

On paper, the process is clear. A case enters the system through the Police, hospitals, midwives, school teachers, or the 1929 NCPA hotline. The child is presented before a Magistrate’s Court, the State assumes guardianship, and a probation officer submits a report to the court. The law mandates that returning the child to a parent or a safe relative is the priority; institutionalisation is the option of last resort. 

DNA testing is conducted and video-recorded statements are taken at specialised units, including one at the NCPA building in Colombo and another in Galle, designed specifically to protect the child from intimidation during the evidence-gathering process. The distance between that formal process and the reality the official described remains considerable.

DNA evidence and the price of a bribe

The integrity of DNA evidence, often the most critical proof in a sexual abuse case, was, according to the source, routinely compromised. Because Police officers transport samples to the Government Analyst, they have ample opportunity to interfere. 

“It’s not a big problem to change the sample,” she claimed. “Just giving about Rs. 15,000 to the person there is enough.” 

Video-recorded statements are equally vulnerable: the source alleged that for between Rs. 200,000–300,000, a victim’s recorded statement could be leaked to the accused.

According to her, negligence in evidence storage compounds the problem. DNA samples frequently sit in hospital refrigerators for months because an investigating officer has been transferred, and no one follows up on the file. 

The source cited one case in which samples collected in December 2024 had remained untested until June 2025; in another, samples had sat at a hospital for two full years. Police action, she alleged, was sometimes driven by approaching audits rather than victim welfare. She shared that she had once been contacted about a kidnapping investigation five months after the child had already been found, because officers needed to fill entries in their books.

Among the accounts the source provided, one stood out for the directness of the institutional failure it revealed. A girl in a rural area had become pregnant at the age of 12. The perpetrator had been a local tea estate owner with economic power over the surrounding community. Rather than investigate him, the Police had arrested the girl’s brother, a young man with Down syndrome. 

The truth had emerged only after the NGO had intervened through the Legal Aid Commission, challenged the integrity of the DNA samples, which had sat in a refrigerator for six months without being sent for analysis, and secured new testing. The results had exonerated the brother. The officers involved had been transferred, and the actual suspect had become the subject of investigation. “The child was a victim twice over,” the source said.

Inside the safe houses

The institutions into which children are placed after removal from abusive environments were, the source said, often indistinguishable in effect from the danger they were meant to escape. 

According to her, State homes built for 45–50 children are frequently housing 100–150. She alleged that children were sometimes confined to locked rooms of roughly 6 ft by 6 ft, eating, sleeping, bathing, and using the toilet in the same cramped space. “A prison would be better than this,” she charged.

Pregnant children attend monthly clinics where they are presented before rotating groups of unfamiliar doctors. “A child has to go in front of a group of unknown doctors every month and show their life,” she alleged. “It’s a very difficult thing.” 

For mothers in State care, the separation that follows childbirth is often permanent. In many facilities, breastfeeding is permitted for only six months, after which the infant is taken for adoption.

Awareness programmes about child protection and the 1929 hotline were concentrated in well-resourced urban schools, the source noted, while rural schools in districts with higher rates of abuse were systematically bypassed for lack of budget. The result is that children in the communities most at risk are also the least likely to know that help exists, or that a teacher could be a bridge to it. 

Meanwhile, the source said, officials responsible for running these programmes were content to conduct workshops in well-equipped urban auditoriums where children needed them least, and call it outreach.

Not just about accountability: NCW

The Anuradhapura case drew a formal response from the National Commission on Women (NCW), established under the Women Empowerment Act No.37 of 2024. 

The commission commended the NCPA’s actions in ensuring the child’s safety, while calling for independent legal representation specifically mandated to safeguard the child’s individual rights – given that no parent or guardian was in a position to act in her best interest.

The commission grounded its demands in Article 12(1) and Article 27(13) of the Constitution, which places on the State a specific duty to safeguard children’s interests and protect them from exploitation. It further invoked Article 24 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which binds Sri Lanka to provide protection to a child as required by her status as a minor, and Section 5 of the ICCPR Act of 2007, which guarantees every child the right to State-funded legal assistance in criminal proceedings.

The commission directed specific calls to four institutions. The NCPA was asked to ensure continued legal and psychosocial protection while preventing re-traumatisation, intimidation, victim-blaming, and public exposure. 

The Sri Lanka Police was asked to conduct all investigations free from influence or interference, to adopt audio-visual means for the child’s evidence, to ensure qualified personnel were available to address the special needs of child survivors, and to assign female officers to the investigation to the maximum extent possible – citing obligations under the Assistance to and Protection of Victims of Crime and Witnesses Act No.10 of 2023. 

The Attorney General’s Department was called upon to actively oversee and monitor the investigation. Furthermore, all media institutions, public figures, and the general public were asked to refrain from any disclosure that could compromise the child’s privacy, dignity, or future well-being.

“This case is not only about accountability for alleged sexual violence against a child, but also brings into focus how Sri Lanka’s criminal justice system treats vulnerable children and its ability to uphold the principles of fairness, equality, and justice,” the commission’s statement read. 

The question of power

Underlying the Anuradhapura case and other similar cases is a dynamic that Prof. de Silva identified plainly: social and financial power operating to suppress accountability. 

High-profile suspects bring resources that disadvantaged victims cannot match. They retain counsel in numbers intended to signal dominance as much as to mount a legal defence. “We should not be intimidated by the number of lawyers the other side has,” Prof. de Silva said. “The focus must remain on justice for the child.” 

The mechanism for that focus exists. Under Section 5 of the ICCPR Act, the State is legally obligated to provide children with adequate legal representation, including State-funded counsel. The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) holds the power to intervene on its own motion. Public interest litigation is available to organisations that wish to challenge Police inaction directly, and writ applications can be filed against Police officers who fail to conduct a proper investigation. 

Attorney Weragoda noted that in extreme cases, these avenues had produced results even against the most senior officials in the country. According to him, the legal framework, taken as a whole, is not without teeth, a point that makes its persistent non-use all the more difficult to excuse.

“Society is used to criticising without knowing that the tools exist,” Weragoda observed.

The law must function through the Police and the legal system without external interference.” 

In the meantime, delays in prosecuting child abuse cases are not isolated incidents. Across Sri Lanka, thousands of such cases remain stalled in High Courts, with some pending for more than a decade while awaiting trial or conclusion.

A recent response to a Right to Information (RTI) request filed by Stop Child Cruelty Trust Chairperson Dr. Tushara Wickramanayaka sought data on child abuse cases pending before High Courts. According to the response, as of January, a total of 4,289 child abuse cases were pending before High Courts across the country. Of these, only 1,683 cases had been scheduled to be taken up or called during the month.

In many districts, fewer than half of the pending cases had been fixed for hearings, pointing to systemic weaknesses that extend beyond routine procedural delays.

Furthermore, more than 40,000 complaints are currently pending before the NCPA while over 4,000 case files are reportedly awaiting action at the Attorney General’s Department.

Against this backdrop, the NGO official, who said that she had spent years watching the mechanisms intended to protect children go unused, was blunt in her criticism.

“A subject minister posting on Facebook saying, ‘I visited here, I checked on the children’s welfare,’ is useless. There must be action,” she charged.

Prof. de Silva also raised concerns over the growing sensationalism surrounding child protection cases, stressing that such matters should be handled through the legal process rather than being turned into public spectacles. Criticising what he described as a TV interview culture, he said cases involving children should proceed through law enforcement authorities, relevant agencies, and courts instead of being amplified by media controversy.

He said that the media often focused on a single high-profile case while overlooking the wider issue affecting hundreds of other children facing similar exploitation. According to him, such coverage frequently presents only half the story.

Police Spokesperson ASP F.U. Wootler, when contacted, vehemently denied allegations of improper case handling, lack of professionalism, and leaking sensitive information to the suspect party. 

He stated that the Police always acted to ensure such incidents did not occur, and that the Inspector General of Police (IGP) had issued several circulars regarding this. According to him, if there are any concerns, the relevant parties can submit complaints to the IGP or the Police Bureau for the Prevention of Abuse of Children and Women. When asked whether any such complaints had been received, he said he was not aware of any at the moment.  

Meanwhile, multiple attempts by The Sunday Morning to contact NCPA representatives, Police Bureau for the Prevention of Abuse of Children and Women Director SSP Imesha Muthumala, and the Department of Probation and Child Care Services were unsuccessful.