Every few months, this newspaper and its contemporaries publish another grim set of figures on child abuse. We carry the statistics, we quote the officials and we write the editorials. Yet, almost without fail, the figures climb again. So, as the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) prepares to introduce a national code of guidelines on child protection, it is worth asking a blunt question: why, after so much reporting and so many promises, can Sri Lanka still not keep its children safe?
The numbers shared at Monday’s media briefing at the Department of Government Information should shame us all. The NCPA receives nearly 10,000 complaints of child abuse every year. That is more than 25 a day, and those are only the cases that someone found the courage to report. Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (Sri Lanka CERT) says highly sensitive incidents involving children online rose from 53 last year to 180 by November this year. In other words, the figure has more than tripled in a single year.
Naturally, a national code is welcome. NCPA Director Shanika Malalgoda was right to say that the threats facing children have changed. Sexual abuse and cruelty are now joined by online exploitation, teenage pregnancies and drug use. She was also right to say that protecting children is the responsibility of every citizen, not merely of one statutory body. However, we have heard versions of this before. A National Child Protection Policy received Cabinet approval in 2019. Guidelines for children’s homes and day care centres have been drafted, approved and printed. Furthermore, in 2020 a special report by the Auditor-General pointed to serious failings in how the Authority itself handled child abuse. Clearly, Sri Lanka does not suffer from a shortage of documents. Rather, it suffers from a shortage of follow-through.
That is why the public deserves straight answers this time. Who will enforce the new code? What happens to a school, a tuition class, a children’s home or a religious institution that ignores it? How many trained child protection officers are in the field, and are they properly resourced? Moreover, how long does it take for a complaint to the 1929 helpline to reach a courtroom, and how many of those cases end in conviction? Without honest answers to these questions, a code of guidelines risks becoming yet another well-meaning booklet on a ministry shelf.
The online figures demand particular attention, because they point to a problem that is partly of our own making. As Sri Lanka CERT’s Charuka Damunupola noted, the rise in incidents has coincided with the spread of monetisation features on social media platforms. Children’s content now earns money, and sometimes it is the parents who post it. Many do so innocently, believing it is harmless fun. But once an image is online, a parent loses control over where it travels and who consumes it. Therefore, any national code must speak plainly to parents, and the State must also press the technology companies that profit from this content to do far more to detect and remove material that exploits children.
Equally, the rest of us cannot hide behind the NCPA. Abuse in Sri Lanka thrives on silence, and respectability often protects that silence. Families close ranks to avoid shame. Teachers and clergy are sometimes shielded by the standing of their institutions. Meanwhile, victims and their families endure delays, repeated questioning and, too often, social stigma. When the search for justice feels like a second punishment, it is hardly surprising that many cases are never reported at all.
The media, too, must examine its own role. We have rightly kept this issue in the public eye. Nevertheless, coverage that sensationalises, or that reveals details from which a child can be identified, does real harm. Our task is not simply to report the outrage of the day, but also to keep asking whether promised reforms have been delivered.
Ultimately, the measure of this new code will not be its launch or its awareness briefings. Instead, it will be whether a frightened child is believed the first time, whether an officer arrives promptly, and whether an abuser is convicted within a reasonable time. If the NCPA, the Police, the courts, schools and parents can achieve that, the figures will begin to fall. If not, we will be back on this page next year, writing the same editorial with larger numbers.