I was prompted to write this letter in reply to an article published in your paper on February 14 (page 9) titled "Children’s homes in the East" by one Prince Casinader, president of some vigilance committee in Batticaloa.

My initial thought was not to reply to this letter and dignify his misguided and malicious intent in writing that article. However, it is important to appreciate the service of hard working government servants like the Commissioner of Department of Probation and Child Care for the Eastern Province, N.P.K Nelumdeniya, and to clarify matters for the public to prevent them from being misled.

The first falsehood in his letter is that the Commissioner had ordered all managers of Children’s Homes in the East "..to SUSPEND ALL ADMISSIONS". This is clearly a distortion of facts. There after he in his own misguided fashion goes on to claim how the children will suffer as a result of this decision and calls officials of the government to investigate the matter as he sees this as a move to prejudice the people of the East against the government.

First of all, the writer had deliberately avoided addressing the contents of the letter sent by the Commissioner to the mangers of Childrens’ Homes dated Jan.16,2009. The letter states clearly and I quote, "As you are aware the admission of children into Voluntary Homes should only be undertaken with the consent of the Department and no children therefore should be admitted directly to the home."

I am in possession of a copy of this letter. Anyone, who can read, will see that it is blatantly clear that there is no prohibition on admitting a child to Voluntary Homes (orphanages) provided the Commissioner sanctions such an admission. Why has Prince Casinader distorted the facts? Reasons are known to him, all others can do is guess. There is a very sound national policy behind this letter sent by N.P.K Nelumdeniya which I will try to explain now.

Another attempt by Mr. Casinader to mislead and demoralize the hard working probation service is when he claims, "Some officers (probation) are trying to dictate which Homes (orphanages) the child should be admitted to ... on what seems to be on narrow religious grounds.

1. Admission to orphanages/Voluntary Homes : Best interest of the child.

The best interest of the child is not an alien concept to Sri Lanka. In fact, it has been very much part of our law since 1939. If one were to look into section 21 of the Children and Young Persons Ordinance (herein after referred to as the CYPO) - the main and the oldest procedural law with regard to children and young persons in Sri Lanka) this will be very clear.

No Sri Lankan needs the state or any international treaty or organization to tell them that the best place for a child is their own biological family, but there are instances the biological parents fail, mainly due to poverty and some times death. There are a number of other reasons, such as, separation of parents due to a marital dispute, one spouse traveling abroad etc. The list is endless but once you study the area it is apparent the root cause is poverty. When the biological family fails for whatever reason, the state is obliged by the law of the land to intervene. The state does so, through the courts of justice assisted by the probation service, as the upper guardian, to provide care and protection for these children. Sections 34 and 35 of the CYPO tell us collectively the occasions on which the state can intervene and what steps need to be taken to provide protection. The Department of Probation and Child Care is trained to carry out this task from 1957 (the birth of the probation service as a separate entity).

Keeping the best interest of the child in mind and the right of a child to have a family, the following is the law and policy. The probation services follow the steps below in the same priority I have listed them when the biological parent/s have failed to provide basic care and protection which is of crucial importance for a child:

1) The probation officer ought to try to prevent the separation of the child from the family. This is the first attempt, provided the probation officer detects the problem before the separation takes place. If, for example, the parents are trying to send the child as a domestic servant due to reasons of poverty, the probation officer will try to provide financial assistance to the family through Samurdi or other mechanisms, such as sponsorship schemes - which are available at the Department of Probation and Child Care. Often this involves channeling available resources to a parent/family but not always. Probation officers also provide parents with non-material support, namely, counseling or channeling parents for proper support services for rehabilitation . Many children become victims not because they are at fault, but because their family units are breaking- up. The list is endless, the task is daunting. But this is what the probation services do to prevent separation of a child from the family in the first place.

2) Failing the above and if the child has been separated from the family; they will try to arrange a ‘fit person’ as provided in the CYPO section 35. This is an arrangement by which even a person who is not a relative of the child can care for the child in his or her own home for periods of time specified by the court (usually up to three years at a time, but could be shorter). This is a foster care order commonly known as a "fit persons order" because the child’s biological parent/s have become "unfit" to care for the child due to a reason acceptable to the court of law. With this system the child is provided with a "family" despite his own family unit having broken- up. Unlike under adoption, in this case, legal custody remains with the court. The court through a probation officer supervises the care provided by the foster family to the child and if the welfare of the child is endangered, the foster family is answerable to court. The foster parent is supervised to see whether the child’s welfare is being promoted. The policy is to provide the child with a family.

3) The other course of action is adoption, which is a permanent arrangement where the adopters become the legal guardian of the child concerned by operation of law and a child is entitled to all the rights as if he /she was naturally born to the adopting family, including the right to inherit the property of the adopted parents. Here too, state policy is clear - it is to provide the child with a family.

4) Sending a child to an institution (Voluntary Home/ orphanage): This is kept as the last resort as this does not provide a child with a family atmosphere despite all the good and honourable intentions the Voluntary Homes may have.

2. Respect for child’s religious persuasion

Mr. Casinader, it is the duty of the state when the biological parents fail, to raise those children as much as possible as their parents would have wanted to. That is why if the child is of the Islam faith, probation officers try to place that child as much as possible in a children’s home which predominantly practises the Islamic faith. If a Tamil- speaking child is sent to a children’s home where all the others are speaking in Sinhala, what would be the plight of that child? If one were to look at section 39 of the CYPO, even the courts of law are under obligation to look into the religious persuasion of the child before sending a child to a certified school or approved school( i.e. the state run establishments).

Justification

This article was written by me only to justify the action of N.P.K Nelumdeniya who is trying to SUPERVISE (not prevent, as Mr. Casinader says) the admission of children into children’s homes. I am not trying for a moment to discredit the commitment of honorable individuals and organizations, who are trying their best to provide care and protection for the children. On the contrary, I praise their noble efforts in trying to care for orphaned children in the best possible way they can. Unfortunately, however, there are many bad eggs in their midst to whom running an orphanage/Voluntary Home is a profitable business. Thus, what the Commissioner’s letter effectively does is to put in place a gate-keeping mechanism whereby he could monitor the flow of children into and out of the Voluntary Homes in the Eastern Province and thereby also minimize the use of orphanages: a step in the right direction. I wish all the Commissioners of Probation in the country could follow the fine example set by Mr. N. P. K. Nelumdeniya.

In the article, Mr.Casinader is claiming with surprise that the orphanages in the East can admit more children as they have the space and the money to do so. Mr.Casinader claims that he was once a probation officer till he joined the teaching profession. I am glad he left the probation service - we can do without probation officers who are hell-bent on filling up vacancies in orphanages.

Mr. Casinader, the state is under no obligation or moral duty to provide children to orphanages. It is the "best interest of the child" and not the best financial interests of certain orphanages that have to be borne in mind.

Whose children are they anyway?

Whose children are we talking about anyway? What is best for the child? If we adults learn to look at a child issue from the point of view of a child, we will learn more about what children want. If we adults listen to the children before taking a decision affecting their life, probably will know better what a child wants. Let us recognize the child as an individual with ideas of what he wants and does not want, not as mere property of parents.

Have you seen young children standing in line in the heat of the sun wearing their school uniform to welcome a politician who is the chief guest of a function and to wave flags and welcome the person who is already two hours late, just because their teachers instructed them to do so? Let’s ask these children what they would rather do, stay in the sun for a few more hours to wave the flag or go home and play with the other kids? I do not know what the answer is going to be, so let’s ask a child.

Whose children are we talking about anyway? Do the biological parents own their children or does the state own them? Does the orphanage they are living in own them? I do not know the answer, but let’s ask a child, the child might tell you by whom he or she likes to be owned by or not owned. Till such time that we find the answers to the above questions, I would like to leave you with a thought of Kahlil Gibran, a famous philosopher and a poet of the 19th century. This is taken from his famous work called the "Prophet":

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of the life longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. Though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give your love to them but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls. For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams……………….."

I salute the Commissioner of the East, N.P.K Nelumdeniya.