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Friday, October 01, 2010 - 5.15 GMT |
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President directs legislative measures to
curb child labour |
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President Mahinda Rajapaksa has instructed the relevant authorities to formulate necessary legislation to provide maximum protection to child labour, prevent child begging, and safeguard women from social discriminations and ill treatment.
Accordingly revisions to the prevailing Acts are being undertaken. This was stated by the.
Minister of Child Development and Women’s Affairs Mr. Tissa Karaliyadda addressing media yesterday said that during the time of the war people were pre-occupied with the fear and uncertainty about their very existence and problems relating to child abuse and mistreatment of women did not surface much but with the successful elimination of the terrorist problem these issues have surfaced and the situation is very intense.
Referring to child begging, the Minister said that using children for begging is done by certain groups for commercial purposes and these children appear in batches in festivals like Kandy Esala Festival, Madhu Festival, Kataragama Festival and other such occasions. He said that new laws envisaged to be implemented would take strong and stringent measures about the groups that commercially utilise children for begging.
Mr. Karaliyadda said that “the society that provides the best thing to the children is the best society”. He said that building such a society is a long process and it should be started with the new born babies upward and in such a way we would be able to build a strong base for a disciplined and honourable society.
Referring to child soldiers the Minister said that rehabilitation of child soldiers are being done by the Ministry of Prisons and Rehabilitation and majority of the child soldiers are now being rehabilitated and rejoined with their families.
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