Harendra De silva

Professor Harendra de Silva has successfully helped to create the National Child Protection Authority of Sri Lanka, and he is leading its campaign to end child abuse throughout that country by overcoming outdated legislation, weak coordination among citizen sector groups, and governmental and public inaction and prejudice.

Professor de Silva realized that it would be possible for a single Sri Lankan government agency to address all aspects of child abuse. Through his persistence, government ministers, officials, police, judges, teachers, medical professionals, and community workers are cooperating with the National Child Protection Authority and successfully using clear, simple, and effective methods of advocacy, protection, legal reform, and rehabilitation for child abuse victims in households nationwide. The authority has managed to cut across all layers of society and government to have a significant presence from the national to the local level.
The strength of the National Child Protection Authority lies in involving everybody in its work, not only as interested observers but also as keen participants. This has meant engaging the public, government agencies and officials, professionals, and nongovernment bodies. In the public domain, the authority has built a high profile through campaigns in schools and in the media, distribution of materials, and publicity actions on prevention and monitoring of child abuse. It has also sought to convince persons in government that by effective legal changes, policymaking and implementation, it is possible with limited resources and effort to significantly affect how people in Sri Lanka treat children. And it has brought representatives of citizen groups and professional associations into the decision-making realm, offering them a role in management and working with them to address the needs of special groups of children like those affected by war. In these ways, the authority is growing beyond any individual or organization and taking on wider ownership, adding momentum to its work, insulating it from outside attack, and institutionalizing its role in Sri Lankan society.

A blanket of denial and silence has for years concealed endemic child abuse in Sri Lanka. Professor de Silva attributes this largely to the tradition of unquestioning obedience and hierarchy that most children are subjected to from birth, one compounded by the repressive and violent period nationwide from the early-1980s to mid-1990s. To the extent that abuse was admitted, it was a "foreign" problem, perpetrated by Western sex tourists. In fact, pedophiles from overseas constitute the most visible but least prevalent form of child abuse in Sri Lanka. By contrast, the least visible and most prevalent form of abuse is incest and domestic violence. The National Child Protection Authority estimates that half a million children daily suffer some form of domestic or sexual abuse. In a survey that Professor de Silva conducted among high-school and university students in the early 1990s, 20 percent of boys and 10 percent of girls reported having been abused. Additionally, around 10 percent of boys admitted having abused a child themselves, among whom 70 percent had also been victims. Among other abused children, partially visible but largely neglected, are child prostitutes and street children, child laborers, the motherless children of some 800,000 women serving as domestic workers abroad and those trafficked for one purpose or another. An additional group of special concern consists of those traumatized by war. In the past, the government response to child abuse was distinguished by a lack of responsibility and discomfort with the subject. Although the government ratified the international Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991 and subsequently formed its own Children's Charter and monitoring committee, in fact these amounted to nothing. Lacking commitment and permeated with the same attitudes as the rest of society, government agencies failed to provide resources and specialized services to address child abuse. There was no specialized legislation to deal with the problem.

For their part, private medical and legal professionals and citizen groups were equally unwilling to recognize the reality, or, like the proverbial blind men and the elephant, each understood it in terms of one part and not the whole. When Professor de Silva, a pediatrician, first raised the issue of child abuse in Sri Lanka with his peers, he was treated with derision and contempt. As for community groups and aid organizations, they were working on different aspects of the problem, but they lacked coordination, focus, and awareness. As a result, some subsidiary concerns were being partially and inadequately addressed, while other areas were neglected altogether. To the extent that child abuse was being treated, it remained unseen.

Discerning that a comprehensive and directed movement to prevent every kind of child abuse in Sri Lanka would not readily arise from among the few concerned nongovernmental agencies and professionals, Professor de Silva launched a campaign for immediate national-level intervention. His efforts culminated in the founding of the National Child Protection Authority in 1999, the first of its kind in South Asia. The authority's mandate encompasses advocacy, legal reform, enforcement, rehabilitation, education, and training.

The authority uses every opportunity and channel to raise publicity for its cause. It commissions prominent artists to sing antiabuse songs for cassettes and CDs and produces short cartoons and dramatic video productions for distribution and broadcast. It also prepares posters, stickers, and small publications, which are cheap and widely distributed, explaining to children and adults alike what child abuse is, why it is wrong, and what to do if it occurs. These also relate the problem to the wider culture of violence that consumed Sri Lankan society during the 1980s and 1990s, drawing links between child abuse and, among other things, general domestic violence and sexual abuse. The authority engages the media and uses its backing to maximum advantage, through well-publicized investigations and trials, television and radio interviews, talk show panels, newspaper and magazine articles, advertisements, and competitions. Professor de Silva is constantly thinking of new ways to spread the message. He has recently considered getting subsidized advertisements onto the powdered milk tins that go to millions of households around the country.

Understandably, schools are an important avenue for the work of the authority, although it also reaches out to children not in school who may have special needs. Apart from distributing materials through schools and raising general issues of child abuse there, the campaign has also targeted violence in school, particularly corporal punishment, which remains common in Sri Lanka, although it is a penal offense. Through lectures, discussions, printed materials, and creative methods–like playground theater during recess periods–more students are aware that corporal punishment is wrong, and more parents are motivated to oppose it. Child protection committees are being established in schools to monitor and report on abuse as well as to manage advocacy work. As a result, some teachers have been taken to court, evidencing a shift in attitudes. The authority has also sought to address the needs of particular types of victims whom it may not be able to reach via schools. For instance, it has set up rehabilitation centers for child soldiers, and it is now establishing drop-in centers–for the so-called "beach boys" who are the targets of foreign tourists–a model successfully used elsewhere in South Asia for other types of abuse. The authority's latest media initiative is Community Radio for Education, a special program for children in war-affected areas.

The National Child Protection Authority also puts considerable effort into proposing, changing, and enforcing laws. Professor de Silva's approach is uncompromising: "We believe that the law of the country should apply to everybody. If someone has contravened the Penal Code that person must go to a court of law," he says. Since pushing through the basic child protection law and a law on video evidence in 1999, the authority has successfully worked on amendments to numerous other acts. These introduce and widen criminal offenses, give greater powers to investigators, change rules of evidence, streamline court procedures for children, and increase the minimum age of employment from 12 to 14. Laws currently under review or slated for review encompass areas of juvenile justice, obscenity, fingerprintable offenses, child-friendly court procedures, mandatory reporting and sentencing regimes, and further definitions of child abuse. As amendments pass and to keep everyone up to date, the authority conducts programs and releases publications for government officials, police, judges, lawyers, doctors, and community workers.

In addition, the authority investigates and arrests perpetrators, trains judges and police, and initiates organizational and administrative changes in judicial institutions. At present, 16 police work full-time under the authority, conducting independent investigations around the country, making highly publicized arrests, and building a national database on child abuse. The police are also organized into various specialized teams, for trafficking and cyber patrol. But, their small number makes nationwide coverage impossible, so district Child Protection Committees are being set up in conjunction with local authorities, empowered to monitor abuse and enforce the law. Police involved with these committees and those engaged in other work on child abuse are receiving additional specialized training in surveillance, investigation, and video recording evidence. Institutionally, changes are being made to the police force: to date around 35 stations have designated women and children's desks, and a new medico-legal form prepared by Professor de Silva has been introduced for use in child abuse cases. These measures have contributed to the 10-fold increase in related prosecutions since the authority was established. For their part, judges are being instructed on amendments to court practices and are being encouraged to adopt measures that will make courts more sensitive to the needs of child victims. In turn, they are handing out increasingly lengthy jail terms for child abusers.

From the start of its work, the National Child Protection Authority has sought to involve as many relevant bodies, professionals, and interested persons as possible. Its board consists of government officials from all relevant ministries, medical and legal professionals, rights campaigners, and social workers. Again, conscious of its limited size and resources, the authority has sought the assistance of other groups to spread its message. For instance, it has cooperated closely with Sarvodaya, the largest nongovernmental organization in Sri Lanka: using Sarvodaya offices and staff, the authority has distributed materials and begun training programs on monitoring and advocacy. By way of another example, the authority is working with the small number of clinical psychiatrists in the country to form a pool of lay counselors for victims. Professor de Silva sees the building of partnerships with other organizations, particularly those working in war-damaged parts of the country, as a priority at this stage in the organization's growth.

The authority has attracted attention from neighboring countries in South Asia, as well as from international bodies. Bangladesh and Nepal are trying to replicate it, and authorities in India, Pakistan, and the Maldives have all expressed interest. The World Health Organization has requested that Professor de Silva prepare a booklet for doctors in South Asia to help them identify and address abuse. The United Nations Economic and Social Council has commended the Child Protection Authority for its work, and UNICEF has sought permission to promote it as a model internationally.

Professor de Silva is an eminent pediatrician and medical research scientist who began his quest for child rights after stumbling on cases of abuse. He had already undertaken groundbreaking research in dysentery and diarrhea and had worked on programs in Sri Lanka to address high infant mortality, malnutrition, and heart surgery in children. But his career turning point came in 1985 when he encountered two children who appeared to have been abused. At the time, he reacted as an academic, medical professional, writing a journal article on what he considered an aberration. He admits that up to that time, like most others in the country, he had thought of child abuse as a "foreign" problem, and had even boasted overseas that Sri Lankan culture prohibited it. Notably, his was the first professional description of child abuse in the country, and he was now quietly prepared to accept that it existed.

From 1985 to 1990, he became more informed about the extent of child abuse in Sri Lanka. With eyes open, he was forced to recognize that it was widespread, yet he became troubled when trying to deal with it effectively. Every government department he contacted said the problem was not its responsibility. His peers did not take him seriously, and some responded angrily. This ignorance and denial prompted him to begin speaking out in public forums, and his work and commentaries began to be covered by the national media. He gave up his thriving private practice and scaled down his university teaching duties to devote more time to the issue. In 1995 he began setting up citizens' district child protection committees–using his own contacts and resources–which were the model for those later officially established. In the same year, he was the first person in Sri Lanka to treat conscription as a form of child abuse, leading to two subsequent changes in legislation.

By 1996 Professor de Silva was at the forefront of a mass media campaign exerting considerable pressure on the government to take responsibility for the problem. That year, in December, he was called to the President's office and asked to establish a task force on foreign pedophiles. Professor de Silva instead proposed a task force to cover all child abuse in Sri Lanka, a proposal the President approved. The task force ran for two years and resulted in the National Child Protection Authority beginning its work in 1999.

The campaign against child abuse consumes all of Professor de Silva's time and energy. The effectiveness of his work has earned him many enemies, but he concludes that, "Although I have been directly and indirectly threatened by perpetrators of child abuse and their supporters, and in spite of risks from all sides, I have and will continue with my efforts in eradicating this menace."