Global End Violence Champion

I grew up in Sri Lanka. Things were very different when I was a child, and domestic violence and corporal punishment were common in both my family and in families across our community. I went to an all girls' school, and I was often punished inside my classroom. My older brothers were subjected to even more severe forms of physical punishment. But unfortunately, it all felt very normal for us.

I did not think much about it until I had my own children many years later. Though I grew up in Sri Lanka, I spent the greater part of my adulthood in the United Kingdom. Eventually, I wanted my children to know my side of the family, along with my culture and my country. We moved to Sri Lanka and I enrolled them in an international school, but almost immediately, the problems began.

My daughter kept coming home with stories about being forced to kneel, being hit on her head, and having her ears pulled. I was shocked and concerned, and I began complaining to the school administration that this type of abuse was not just outdated, but unacceptable. I continued to speak up about complaints mechanisms, safeguarding policy and staff training, but nothing changed. One day, my daughter came home after a particularly bad incident affecting her and eight other boys and girls. They were humiliated in front of their classmates. That was the spark that changed everything and led me to become an activist against corporal punishment in Sri Lanka.

When I began complaining, I became an outcast. It was my fault, they said, because I was causing an issue within the school community. Even when I complained to the National Child Protection Authority, they treated my complaints with less significance. We have a proverb in Sri Lanka that goes something like: "a curry that is not stirred and a child that is not hit are both spoiled." It is written into our culture, and sometimes it seems impossible to confront.

Those in power, like many others, feel that corporal punishment is an acceptable norm in society. Considering that my daughter was enrolled in an international school, everyone I approached kept dropping my complaints like a hot potato. No one wanted to take responsibility for the abuse happening within my daughter’s school. When I brought my case to the courts, I was met with laughter. The judges were of the opinion that they were punished as children, and they turned out just fine. The court did not provide a legitimate reason for dismissing the case.

Over and over again, the systems kept failing: the education system, law enforcement, the judiciary, the National Child Protection Authority and the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka. Eventually, I took my case to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. It is believed to be the very first case from Sri Lanka that the UNHRC accepted. They took our case on board, accepted it, and registered it.

The state party had until 21 March 2021 to respond to the UN Committee. I fervently hope that the state party will honour its national and international commitments to child protection and implement the recommendations made by the UN Committee.

We established the Stop Child Cruelty Trust in March of 2018. We have a group of advisors, our Alliance of Professionals, that includes the very first Chairman of the National Child Protection Authority, along with many other experts who have been long-time campaigners of child protection. Together, we formulated our Pentagon Proposal, which is our five-pronged approach to ending corporal punishment in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka’s president at that time came to our inaugural event, which gathered over 600 people from across the country. Once there, he accepted our proposal, along with a petition of over 3,000 people urging for action against corporal punishment. These signatures proved that, though corporal punishment was still socially and culturally accepted, many people wanted things to change.

We continue to advocate for changes in laws while also launching awareness-raising programmes about the impact of corporal punishment through both social and national media. We also often post videos advocating against this issue and promoting children’s rights. Our latest month-long debate series ended with students from the top eight schools taking part in a competition about the rejection of violence.

We also hold trainings for teachers, helping them learn positive behaviour change methods and techniques as opposed to violent, abusive ones. We educate teachers about the state of corporal punishment in this country and use mindfulness and empathetic understanding to help teachers better manage their stress levels. We’ve trained hundreds of teachers, and though there have been mixed reactions, I feel hopeful that things are changing for the better.

My mantra in life is equality, justice and hope. I always believe in hope. If not, why would we bother?

When we first started the Stop Child Cruelty Trust, 90 per cent of the comments and feedback we received were negative. People said that they supported corporal punishment and that they were doing great now because they were hit as children. We also repeatedly heard that we were pushing a Western, Euro-Centric idea on Sri Lankan communities, or propping up foreign agendas with foreign funds branded as NGO. Of course, that is just wrong. No matter where you grow up, children have the right to a life free from violence.

A year or so later, those comments began to change. Today our advocacy is met with more discussion, and the negative comments have gone down by nearly half. We have been appointed to several committees on law reform through the Ministry of Justice. We started the Just Say No campaign, where we put children, the main stakeholders, in control.

On top of that, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka made a historic decision in February 2021, condemning the use of corporal punishment in Sri Lankan schools. So yes, I think there is great hope in the future. We know we have been able to change the mindset of people, and we think more change is coming. Child protection is a collective social responsibility.