Sri Lanka’s Attorney General, Palitha Fernando, rejected claims in 2012 that sexual abuse of children was increasing dramatically in the country, arguing that many cases being recorded as child abuse involved relationships between teenage boys and girls rather than violent sexual assaults.
Speaking to Lakbima News, Fernando distinguished between cases involving force and cases involving teenagers who were in relationships with each other.
He said that incidents involving violence and rape were comparatively rare, while cases involving teenagers were increasingly being reported as child-abuse cases.
Attorney General questions how cases are classified
Fernando argued that the circumstances surrounding individual cases needed to be examined rather than treating every reported incident as an example of violent sexual abuse.
In comments reported at the time, he said:
“Very rarely do we get cases where abuse is committed by force, violent abuse… where, let’s say, a girl is dragged into some place and raped. Those cases are very rare and we need to view them very seriously.”
He then referred to cases involving teenagers, giving the example of an approximately 18-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl.
“All those cases are also reported as cases of child abuse. But actually those are not cases where any sort of violence is involved.”
The comments were made against a backdrop of increasing public concern about sexual abuse of children in Sri Lanka.
Responsibility of parents and teachers
Fernando also placed emphasis on the responsibility of parents and teachers to protect children and educate them about sexual relationships and inappropriate behaviour.
He argued that existing legislation already provided mechanisms for dealing with child abuse, pointing to amendments made to the law in 1995.
Rather than attributing the apparent increase in reported cases solely to a rise in abuse itself, he suggested that greater public and media awareness had resulted in more incidents being brought to the attention of authorities.
According to the contemporary report, Fernando said that even relatively minor cases were increasingly being reported as child-abuse incidents.
Growing concern over child abuse
The Attorney General’s comments came at a time when concerns about sexual abuse in Sri Lanka were receiving increased public attention.
Several cases involving allegations of sexual abuse had attracted national attention, including allegations involving individuals connected to the ruling political establishment.
Doctors in Jaffna had also raised concerns about an increase in sexual abuse cases involving children.
At the same time, international reports were drawing attention to wider concerns surrounding sexual exploitation and trafficking in Sri Lanka.
The United States government had reported concerns involving boys being trafficked into prostitution, while international human-rights organisations had raised allegations of sexual violence affecting women in the north and east.
Government response to criticism
Fernando’s comments followed earlier statements by Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who had also disputed claims that rape and sexual abuse were increasing in Sri Lanka.
Rajapaksa had criticised the media’s reporting of such incidents, arguing that reporting practices could create a misleading impression about the scale of the problem.
The issue therefore became part of a wider public debate over whether Sri Lanka was experiencing an actual increase in sexual abuse, or whether improved awareness and reporting were causing more incidents to enter the official record.
A controversial distinction
The distinction made by the Attorney General between violent sexual abuse and relationships involving teenagers became controversial.
While Fernando was discussing the classification and prosecution of cases under Sri Lankan law, critics argued that describing relationships involving minors as “consensual” could obscure the vulnerability of children and the legal protections designed specifically for them.
The distinction also raised questions about how Sri Lankan authorities understood consent, age and sexual relationships involving minors.
The contemporary Tamil Guardian report highlighted these comments as part of a wider criticism of the government’s response to child sexual abuse. It reproduced Fernando’s remarks and reported that he had attributed increased reporting partly to greater media awareness.
The broader context in 2012
The controversy unfolded during a period when Sri Lanka was under increasing scrutiny over human-rights issues more broadly.
Concerns about sexual violence, particularly in the north and east following the end of the civil war, were being raised by international organisations and human-rights groups.
The government consistently rejected many of the allegations and maintained that Sri Lanka had functioning legal mechanisms for dealing with abuse.
Against that background, the Attorney General’s comments became part of a much larger debate over whether the country’s institutions were adequately responding to allegations of sexual violence and child abuse.
