From July 2020 to July 2022, sixteen children were physically or sexually abused, neglected, and murdered. Yet, the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has done nothing effective to ensure the safety and welfare of approximately 5.1 million children, who make up 25% of the population. This is an unprecedented level of unnatural child deaths in a country without armed conflict, famine, natural disasters, or disease.Sri Lanka’s first and second Universal Periodic Reviews (UPR) took place in May 2008 and November 2012. The country ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1991. Despite promises by successive governments at every international forum, the GOSL has failed to fulfill its legal obligations to protect and promote children’s rights.

During the third UPR Working Group, Sri Lanka accepted recommendations to continue protecting children, prohibit corporal punishment in all settings—including at home—and adopt special measures to ensure vulnerable children have meaningful access to the justice system and complaint procedures.In the UNCRC’s ‘Concluding Observations’ on Sri Lanka’s combined fifth and sixth periodic reports (2 February 2018), urgent action was recommended to prohibit violence, including corporal punishment, as a top priority.