UNICEF chief calls on President Kumaratunga

[September 23, 2004 - 9.30 GMT] 

Manjula Fernando reporting from New York

UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy commended the Sri Lankan initiative to launch the National Plan of Action for Children that proposes to build a better world for them, fulfilling a commitment made by the world leaders at the UN special assembly session in 2002.

Bellamy said "she was glad to see Sri Lanka going ahead with its commitment" with a program outlining how they work towards achieving the targets in the global plan prepared at the Special session in 2002, when she called upon the President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga at her hotel in New York yesterday, Secretary to the President W.J.S.Karunaratne said.

Karunaratne said Sri Lanka will spend over Rs. 141,00 million on this program targeting the children. The Action Plan proposes to enhance child development sector covering the areas of education, healthcare, water supply, child protection, child labour and juvenile justice.

Some key objectives of the program is to ensure pre school participation of children in the age group from 3-5 from 62 % to 80 %, reduce all forms of child abuse, proper investigation, monitoring and legal reforms and to improve quality of care, protection and rehabilitation for children in institutional care, etc.

"The government has already allocated Rs.100 million for this purpose and UNICEF Chief assured their assistance for the program that will continue for a period of four years from 2004 to 2008," Karunaratne said.

President Kumaratunga has explained that the country needed UNICEF support to set apart a comprehensive mechanism to address the issue of psychological trauma in war affected families, orphans and widows in the North and East as well as in the southern parts of the country.

She has said this was a key issue threatening the future of her country, struggling to recover from a long dragged ethnic conflict that left 23,000 soldiers disabled and many more traumaticed.

UNICEF Chief has agreed to send in experts in this special field of counseling to train Sri Lankans, in response to a request by the President who explained that Sri Lanka lacked proper expertise in this field of therapy, Karunaratne said.

Bellamy said she was happy to note that Sri Lanka is hosting the forthcoming Regional Conference on Commercial Exploitation of Children in Colombo next month.

President Kumaratunga said the current UNICEF country representative who was a dynamic and efficient personality has made a large contribution in furthering children's rights in Sri Lanka and has made good progress in suppressing the LTTE from recruiting child soldiers.

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Last Updated Date: September 23, 2004  - 9.30 GMT.