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1. International
Educational Development addressed certain concerns
relating to children in Sri Lanka affected by
armed conflict in an oral statement delivered at
the 61st session of the Commission.
2. At the time we made that oral statement there
was insufficient information about post-Tsunami
relief to children in the Tamil areas. Present
information indicates that the post-Tsunami period
has seriously worsened the situation of Tamil
children in Sri Lanka.
3. Our concerns about children affected by armed
conflict in Sri Lanka has focused on what we
consider politically motivated allegations of
“child soldiers” in the armed forces of the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rather
than on the over-all situation of children in the
war zones. The numbers of possible under-age
children in the LTTE are relatively few in
comparison to the numbers of Tamil children killed
outright by military operations of the armed
forces of the government of Sri Lanka, or children
who have been injured, raped, made homeless, made
orphans by government operations in the Tamil
areas. The international community should focus on
the plight of all the thousands of these children,
not on the few instances of “child soldiers” --
especially as there has been a cease-fire in the
war in Sri Lanka for a number of years and
therefore no “child soldiers” in actual combat.
Governments and non-governmental organizations
that focus on the relatively few “child soldiers”
cases are not helping either resolve the conflict
or the situation of all children affected by it.
4. The focus on the few rather than on the many
has been exceptionally useful to the United States
and its interests in Sri Lanka. In our view this
interest is not motivated by any genuine concern
for children in Sri Lanka, whether the children
are Tamil or Sinhala. We presented a brief review
of United States interests in Sri Lanka in our
written statement under item 5. These include the
United States perceived need to establish military
control over the region reaching from the
sub-continent to the Caucasus, using a revamped
Palaly airfield in the north of Sri Lanka, as well
as deep water ports in the Tamil areas. Because of
these interests, the US seeks to shift attention
from the war, and place it in the context of
terrorism and counter-terrorism. Under this
scenario, Geneva Convention violations of the
government of Sri Lanka are not addressed at all.
The Tamil people, their aspirations and the LTTE
are demonized while inquiry into serious human
rights violations carried out by the Sri Lankan
authorities against the Tamil people, including
Tamil children, does not occur.
5. The US and NGO focus on child soldiers in the
LTTE is also distressing as neither the US nor the
NGOs have mentioned the far larger numbers of
Sinhala child soldiers and the active recruitment
of Sinhala children under the age of 17 by the Sri
Lanka armed forces. As we indicated at the 61st
session of the Commission, former Prime Minister
Ranil Wickramasinghe stated in the Sri Lanka
Parliament that the government was actively
recruiting 15 year old children, and had started
one recruitment campaign at the very time the
Secretary General’s Special Representative for
Children and Armed Conflict, Mr. Olara A. Otunnu,
was in Sri Lanka. Apparently only Mr.
Wickramasinghe and our organization are concerned
about Sinhala child soldiers or the government’s
under-age recruitment campaigns.
6. The Tsunami, of course, resulted in thousands
of casualties of men, women and children
throughout all of Sri Lanka. This has added
tremendously to the difficulties of thousands
children who had already been victims of the war
and many thousands who had not been. However, very
little international relief has reached these
victims, whose numbers and needs far outweigh
possible child soldiers. Indeed, many young
orphans sought out the areas under LTTE control
for food, shelter and schooling. What few in the
international community understand is the degree
to which the Sri Lanka government has prevented UN
officials and aid providers from traveling to the
Tamil areas -- far more affected by the Tsunami
then the Sinhala areas. And most distressingly,
some non-governmental aid providers, who collected
hundreds of millions of $US for Tsunami victims,
were prevented from delivering any appreciable aid
to the Tamil areas by the United States and the
government of Sri Lanka. For example, the American
Red Cross, an organization that collected millions
of $US for Sri Lanka, was told by the United
States authorities that under US law it was
illegal for them distributed any aid in the Tamil
areas. The American Red Cross has apparently not
challenged this position that so clearly defies
both international humanitarian and disaster
relief law. We do not have any information about
what the ICRC has done about this, but we can
assure the Commission that NO appreciable aid
collected by the Red Cross has reached the Tamil
people affected by the Tsunami. Our organization,
in concert with the Association of Humanitarian
Lawyers, seeks the recovery of funds collected for
aid to Tamils under false pretenses. Further, both
the US and the UK have targeted the Tamil Relief
Organization (TRO) and its international effort to
get relief to the Tamils in Sri Lanka. TRO has
been the only group seeking and delivering funds
to Tamil Tsunami victims. The international
community should work to ensure fair distribution
of Tsunami relief to all victims.
7. The focus of certain governments and NGOs on
LTTE child soldiers is also distressing given the
huge problem of sexual slavery, child pornography
and child prostitution in Sri Lanka, almost
exclusively in the Sinhala community, which
warrants the attention of all. According to the
most sincere organizations working on these
issues, Sri Lanka is a pedophile’s paradise. This
is especially true in the resort areas -- almost
all of which are in the Sinhala part of the
island. Reports indicate that as many as 30,000
children, many of them boys, work the beaches and
that there may be as many as 100,000 Sinhala
children involved in child pornography and
prostitution.[1] According to Sri Lanka NGOs,
human rights activists feel that the sexual
exploitation of children in the South is an issue
largely ignored by Southern polity, which would
rather spend its efforts on highlighting a few
cases of children “joining” the LTTE to escape
abject poverty than the thousands of cases of
Sinhala children trafficked on Southern and
Western beaches: a child soldier is a more
valuable political commodity than a child victim
of sex tourism.
As the vast majority of post-Tsunami aid has gone
to the Sinhala areas, the resorts have reopened
for business, bringing both the sexual predators
and the young victims together again.
8. We urge concerted international effort to
address the protection of children in Sri Lanka
from sexual exploitation. In this light we urge
the Commission’s Special Rapporteur M. Juan Petit
to undertake an investigative mission to Sri Lanka
to investigate the post-Tsunami resurgence of
child prostitution and pornography.
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[1] IED presents these
figures without a guarantee of their accuracy, but
to make the point that the figures given by
credible NGOs indicate thousands more children
involved in child pornography, prostitution and
trafficking than are involved as “child soldiers”
in areas controlled by the LTTE.
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