Thaindian News

Colombo, Nov 6 (IANS) Over 7,000 complaints of children being abused have been recorded in Sri Lanka this year, an official said Sunday.

The National Child Protection Authority said most of the complaints included children being sexually abused or molested by their parents, guardians or people known to them.

Sri Lanka has a national telephone hotline to report child abuse and most of the complaints had been received on the hotline and were authenticated, said Anoma Dissanayake, the chairperson of the National Child Protection Authority.

Dissanayake said people with political links in Sri Lanka are also believed to be involved in child abuse but the incidents go unreported owing to the political connections of the suspects.

The police Sunday reported two incidents of 15-year-old girls being raped by their lovers.

Both incidents had taken place in areas far from capital Colombo and similar incidents had been reported last week as well, the police said.

Dissanayake said that there are concerns over the rising number of child abuse cases being reported both to her organisation and the police.

The Sri Lankan government minister in charge of the welfare of women and children Tissa Karaliyadda told Xinhua that stiff laws need to be introduced to address child abuse cases in Sri Lanka.

He said that the Sri Lankan government hopes to bring amendments to the existing laws to address the issue.