Grinding poverty stalks Jaffna’s children

By: S. Somitharan

The two checkpoints at Thandikulam, on either side of the border present a picture of intense activity. And understandable too: unless the Sri Lanka military and the LTTE are able to run their respective systems at a high degree of efficiency there will be bottlenecks on the A9.

Under the placid morning sun visitors to Jaffna, obviously coming from overseas, alight from their vehicle and stretch their limbs. Their sense of relief in getting off from the cramped interior of the van is tempered by the thought of having to undergo regimented checking that all travellers to Jaffna and the Vanni are subject, both by the army and the civilian officials under the LTTE.

Lounging under the trees that rustle in the breeze of early January, before the sun reaches the pinnacle on its journey to the west, they are assailed by an attack of thirst. Looking around they spy a little corner-shop that sells bottled water, because the supply from the tap might be contaminated with bacteria too robust for their vulnerable little stomachs used to the clinical purity of the water available in the metropolises of London, Paris, Toronto or Melbourne.

On the way to the corner-shop, a boy approaches one of the party. The lad is sunburnt and wears grubby, though not tattered clothes. Though small, his adolescence is visible by the down on his upper lip slowly taking the form of an adult moustache. He proffers a bottle from a number in a cloth bag he carries. It contains a dark liquid.

“What’s this?” asks the foreign returnee hesitantly in broken Tamil; he is apprehensive lest it be some heady, clandestine Wanni brew being sold to him.

“Bee’s honey...” says the boy, his eyes lighting up at the question in the prospect of putting through sale.

“Where did you get it from?” asks the foreign returnee, the sight of the exotic kindling gastronomic excitement, somewhat jaded from years of eating western junk food.“My brother gets it. I sell it!” says the boy, his voice now alive with enthusiasm hoping to lock the foreign returnee in conversation as a prelude to selling his wares.

The sight of boys aged between 10-15 years selling bee’s honey at the checkpoints in Omanthai and Muhamalai on both sides of the border is a common sight today. The years of war, displacement and separation have left them drowning in poverty, with only the meagre allowances from the government available to support their bloated families. The ceasefire was a wonderful opportunity because the threat of death through shelling or an air raid receded. But the desperate circumstances in which their families lived did not change.

Then came a rumour that the Jaffna – Kandy Road was reopening. There seemed to be a faint glow of opportunity to earn a few rupees to support the family. But who was to earn it? Not the father, who was dead perhaps or had disappeared; not the mother who had to look after toddlers in the brood. The task of the breadwinner thus becomes the onerous responsibility of a boy or girl between the ages 10 and 15. He or she by rights (and by definition of UNICEF) should be going to school.

Chandran is 12 years old. He is among the 16 kids who hang out at Thandikulam checkpoint selling honey. His friends sell apples or oranges. They play practical jokes on each other and the lively banter between them is infectious. But below that, competition is keen. A few more apples sold could mean an extra bit of food that would go a long way to fill the empty stomachs at home.

Chandran is from a family of five. He has a brother older than him and a sister. He also has a brother and sister younger to him. Chandran is shy, and despite the eagerness to sell bottles of honey, scared.

“I have to work. My elder sister is maimed. She got caught to an exploding shell and has to get treatment every month. Unless I work every day, we cannot afford to give my sister the treatment she needs,” Chandran said, speaking hesitantly.

He studied up to the fourth grade and dropped out. The family lived in Kilinochchi but due to the fighting was displaced. Chandran’s father disappeared during the trek in 1998 from the Wanni to Vavuniya, where the family now lives.

“My brother is 17. He goes to work. He gets the honey for me to sell,” said the little boy.Thilakan is his friend, who is from Vavuniya too. He is around 10 years old. The mudalalai gives him a bag of 10 apples to sell. If he sells one bag he gets a commission of Rs.10. “During the early days after the road was opened I used to get up to 100 rupees a day from the visitors; now with the numbers dwindling my daily income is not so good,” he said.

At Muhamalai another group of children are busy selling patties. They are mostly from a village in Kilinochchi. A girl comes up; she is reluctant to give her name and stares at the visitors curiously as if trying to get into their thoughts. She says she is 10 and her sister, 13. They start from Kilinochchi bus stand at 6.30 every morning spending Rs.25 for the ticket with a stock of patties their mother bakes for them. They sell till around three in the afternoon, but if they finish their stock, go earlier.

When asked whether they go to school they replied in the affirmative, their eyes shifting elsewhere. But the fact is you see them at the checkpoint day in day out.

Chandran, Thilakan and our little patties-seller are not unique. They are among the scores you will see at any market whether it be in Kilinochchi, Puthukudiyruppu, Mallavi or Kalliyankaadu. They are all between 10-15 years, which the war has left as providers to their families.

The Sabapathy camp for the internally displaced is teaming with children. They are from among the thousands of IDPs who were displaced from Valigamam due to deliberate and systematic efforts by the Sri Lanka army between 1983-1993 to depopulate the area by shelling and aerial bombardment. The waste that was result of this criminal policy became the High Security Zone (HSZ).

Most of the families in the Sabapathy camp are driven to the end of their tether due to the circumstances they find themselves in. Some were displaced as far back as 1990. There are 99 children in the camp between 9-15 years of which 30 do not go to school. The balance go to school but irregularly and enduring much hardship.

V. Alageswaran (15) left from the ninth year in 2002. While his more fortunate counterparts were planning to sit the GCE Ordinary Level examination, desperation drove Alageswaran from school. His 16-year-old brother Anbarasan left from the eighth grade in 2000. They left because they were already working at night in a bakery, while attending school by day. They worked continuously during the weekend. The nightshift made it possible for them to be present in school only every other day.

“But baking in the oven before an open fire gave us burns all over our bodies and unable to withstand it any longer we decided to return to school,” said Alageswaran. But that did not last too long and they discontinued.

Anbarasan is now a casual employee mostly working as a labourer.

Their father is sick and cannot be employed. Alageswaran’s family has 10 members – eight children and the parents. His elder sister is studying her GCE Advanced Level. The brothers earn basically to support the sister’s education. Three of the younger siblings are in school too. Poverty that dogs the family is partly due to the heartless policies followed by the government in granting relief. According to the government’s assistance programme, the maximum a family receives as relief payment is calculated for families of five and above – that is Rs.630 for fortnight or Rs.1260 per month. This is ridiculously low for a family of 10 to subsist on: hence Anbarasan and Alageswaran have to work to keep the home fires burning.

A. Kugathevnathan is an inmate of Sabapathy camp. He is 17 and has studied up to his GCE Ordinary Level. The IPKF killed his father in Oorani after which his mother married again rendering him for all intents and purposes an orphan. He would want to continue studying, but has to find work to live. And his O/Levels notwithstanding he can only command casual employment.

K. Nimalathas is also 17. He left school in 2000 and works as a casual manual employee, to help his 7-member family, which subsist on his income. The other siblings go to school. “If we are to educate the other children we have to send at least one to work. The relief allowances of 630 rupees a fortnight is not enough for seven people to manage on,” says Kunalingam Ranjani (35), Nimalathas’ mother.

But her anxieties are nothing compared to Selvarasa Vasantha (45), mother of eight children. A mine that was concealed behind a cinema in Chunnakam maimed her husband in 1997 and he has not been employed since. One of the eight children married, but committed suicide due to a dispute arising from dowry payments. Another child is now 20 and visually handicapped.

“I have two children studying in year three and six. I have to support them. I bake titbits and sell them in schools to make ends meet,” she told Northeastern Herald. Domestic pressures have become a great disincentive to formal learning. This has led to UNICEF and other organisations pioneering a drive to upgrade school enrolment. But just the fact children are in school is not a panacea for all ills. Children who are most affected are from among the poorest sections of Jaffna society and attend schools by trying to carry on as well as they might under straitened circumstances.

Some of the children of the displaced from Valigamam go to Vasvilaan Central School, Tellipalai Union College and Mathuthanamadam Ramanathan College, which are among the few that function in Valigamam.

“There is no discipline in the conventional sense of the word because children are irregular to school. But the problem is that they have to work. They come to school only if the parents insist they should,” said A. S. Nadarajah, retired principal of Vasavilaan Central College.

S. Varaharajah, deputy director of education, Jaffna zone, pointed to logistical problems arising from irregular attendance. “The irregularity of the students does not allow for a accurate computation of the number of students actually attending school. This becomes a problem later when applying for assistance etc., because there are no concrete figures to go by,” he lamented.

An important reasons for children who come irregularly, to dropout completely is the school system that continues to function according to the archaic way of passing and failing students. If the children fail to go to school, they fail exams; when they are not given promotions their peers humiliate them for a lack of intelligence. Children dropout altogether if they are unable to come to terms with such degrading treatment.

“How can we go to school when we have to sit with smaller children? They laugh at us,” said children Bharathipuram Maha Vidyalayam in Kilinochchi.

Schools find it difficult to take the initiative to help children who are unable to come regularly because the institutions themselves are not financially well equipped. Bharathipuram Maha Vidyalayam is so poor that children sit on mats in dilapidated huts. At this school children have dropped off as long as two years and returned. Since they have to catch up with the class and because they go to work in daytime, volunteers have night school, but that too is not sufficient.

The war has also affected the psychosocial well being of children, denting their willingness to study or concentrate. There is child studying in Meesalai Hindu College (name withheld) who witnessed a bomb explosion in close proximity, when she was in the sixth grade. Now in her in Year 10 she displays fear of crowds, is very reclusive, constantly complains of headaches and takes a long time to be cured of even common illnesses. She is one among many persons traumatised by their encounters with war and unable to deal with them.

A teacher in a school in Erlalai who did not wish to be named said, “Children display very aggressive behaviour while in school. We cannot instil any discipline. But when you study their backgrounds you find they not only work to provide for the home, which curbs the freedom of childhood, but also come from broken families and can express their frustration only in school,” he said.

Rev. Fr. S. Damien, a psychosocial counsellor said symptoms of disorders arising from trauma are evident in students and children. They displayed unexpected aggression, learning disorders, falling performance in school, and psychosomatic problems such as insomnia, chest pains, poor appetites etc. He said there was very little infrastructure available in Jaffna to cope with the demands made on psychosocial counselling and other services.

Health and social workers express deep anxiety about the long-term consequences of mass poverty and psychological trauma on the rising generation. What is worse, the aid promised at the donor conferences appear to emphasise rebuilding of physical infrastructures and not on providing services to arrest the appalling levels to which social services have descended in the northeast. This will only deteriorate further if they continue to go un-addressed, while refugees and IDPs begin their homeward trek.

Thanks to Northeastern Herald
2003 February 07 - February 13