27 September 2023 12:00 am
World Children’s Day was first established in 1954 as Universal Children’s Day. It is the day in 1959 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. It is also the date in 1989 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In our country-Sri Lanka - Children’s Day is marked on 1 October every year. Since independence, we have many laws protecting children including laws preventing the exploitation of children from being used as cheap labour.
We can also proudly point out that our health services have greatly reduced child mortality rates.
Today, unfortunately, our country is in a bad place economically.
The Covid-19 virus led to lockdowns and the closure of many places of business and avenues of employment. It meant many lost their employment. Casual workers were the worst affected -parents were unable to provide their children with adequate food and nutrition.
The pandemic resulted in the closure of schools for nearly a year or so. Many a child was deprived of his/her education for nearly a year or so.
Our government attempted to mitigate this situation via the introduction of online education. Unfortunately, a majority of families do not have facilities to avail themselves of this facility.
Figures from the Department of Census and Statistics show that while 17.8% of Sri Lanka’s urban households own a computer, only 6.9% of rural and 1.1% of estate sector households own computers.
At the national level, laptop computers are available in only 0.9% of households and these are primarily in the Colombo District.
Making matters worse, just a year ago the country was declared bankrupt leading to many more families losing employment. Again the worst affected were our children.
According to UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund), Sri Lanka is amidst an acute economic crisis with worsening food insecurity forecast between October 2022 and February 2023.
The study reveals, an estimated 2.3 million children in our country need urgent aid right now. Without action, millions could face acute malnutrition. This puts their lives and future welfare at risk.
The stark reality the survey presents is that children in our country are not on an equal footing and are facing malnutrition.
This situation cannot be overcome by the efforts of the government alone. It needs every one of us to work together, to extricate ourselves from a situation we, together with our politicians have got this country into. We can do this only if we face the problem together.
And, therein lies the problem. From the time we enter school, what we learn depends on which part of the country we come from - that Sinhalese settled in the country first, or Tamils settled here first, indicating a greater ownership or rights in the country.
We do not learn, nor are we taught, that irrespective of race or religion we are equal citizens of this country.
The reality though is ‘adivasies’ are the first citizens of this country. Sadly they are not treated as equals, are often the butt of jokes and are only used as showpieces during public events.
We thus grow up with ‘inborn’ biases and antagonisms against each other. A good example of our self-destructive divisive tendencies comes into play even when faced with a national crisis.
When for instance Sri Lanka stands accused of ‘committing crimes against humanity’ at international fora, our politicians point a finger at each other. None seem to realise war does not discriminate between civilians and militants.
What a difference to how Indian citizens and political parties faced the recent Canadian charges of the Indian government’s involvement in the killing of a citizen of Canada. Political differences were dropped. No one tried to gain political capital from the incident.
Unless and until we learn to put our country before race and religion, our children will continue to flounder and their future will stagnate in positions of minions on the international stage.