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EASTERN SRI LANKA, 2008-08-25
More than two decades of conflict in the North and East of Sri Lanka have had a negative impact on vulnerable children in the region. Tens of thousands of Sri Lankan children now live in conflict-affected areas. Children living with their families or caregivers have experienced disruptions in their education and have lived with the threat of being conscripted into the fighting forces; those without parents or guardians may be trapped in institutional and legal systems that are unable to reunite them with their families or provide community-based alternatives to institutional care. Entire families have faced disruptions in health services and become increasingly impoverished as economic opportunities decline in conflict-affected areas. As a result, parents and caregivers who no longer have the financial means to care for children often turn to privately-run institutions to provide health and educational services. Such a solution comes at the expense of a child's development and social integration.
USAID/Sri Lanka's New Beginnings Program focuses on community mobilization for improved care and protection of children and on reunifying institutionalized children with their families. New Beginnings is implemented by Save the Children in Sri Lanka, through funds provided by the Displaced Children and Orphans Fund. The overall goal of the program is to protect children affected by armed conflict and violence in the family or community from further harm, prevent family separation and support them in gaining safe access to family and/or government support, as appropriate, as well as social inclusion in the wider community.
Sri Lanka presents many contradictions. It has relative economic prosperity, a strong policy and legislative environment, an active media, and all the characteristic signs of a democracy, with 90 percent of children enrolled in primary school. On the other hand, only 70 percent of those children complete secondary school, 25 percent of the population is living on less than US $2 per day, and more than 300,000 people were displaced by conflict in 2007 -- children comprising 39 percent -- while thousands of persons displaced by the December 2004 tsunami remain without permanent housing. With this mixed picture, children's rights in Sri Lanka continue to be violated. Effective protection of children from violence and abuse is not high on the priority list for the government and its agencies, other parties to the ongoing conflict, and even community leaders and members. Children, especially the poorest and those already vulnerable -- girls, children with disabilities, children living within areas affected by conflict, and children living on plantations -- bear the brunt of various forms of violence and abuse, whether in institutions, within their families or communities, at school, or within armed groups.
In 2007, USAID/Sri Lanka began adjusting its support and assistance to focus on issues related to rehabilitation and development of the multi-ethnic, conflict-affected Eastern Province. The Mission is now implementing activities to strengthen and increase citizens' participation in local governance, and to support agriculture-based value chains and promote private-sector investment in the region. Using a longer-term approach, the Mission plans to include child protection interventions in a wider social protection intervention aimed at strengthening the coping mechanisms of children and vulnerable families. The Mission also anticipates that the return of displaced populations to their homeland provides an opportunity to conduct early recovery interventions in those areas.
Aiming to improve local social services in child care and protection, as well as in family and community-based protection systems, the $ 2.6 million USAID-funded program is implementing several activities on child protection in Southern and Western provinces, and will implement similar activities in Eastern Province in 2008. This six-year intervention began in 2004 and will be completed in 2011. The activities focus on improving services for children in need of care and protection. In order to tailor the interventions appropriately, the program will work directly within the communities to develop and strengthen vital child-protection systems. The program will give further special focus to preventing identified families from separating and will provide appropriate economic support to strengthen those families. The program will also engage with relevant authorities and other key stakeholders to continue strengthening their capacity to carry out their mandates effectively.
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