President acts on Daily Mirror article; calls for probe

By Shane Seneviratne

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has drawn special attention to a Daily Mirror article published on Wednesday stating that a majority of underage girls in at least 17 police station areas within the Kandy Police Division have been involved in consensual sex.

A senior official from the Presidential Secretariat, responding to the Daily Mirror article titled "Girls raped at their own will" published in Wednesday's edition, had inquired about this matter from the relevant doctor who gave the information to the journalist.

It is also learnt that the Presidential Secretariat officials had informed the doctor that President Ranil Wickremesinghe has decided to appoint a special presidential investigation team to look into the matter.

As reported in the Daily Mirror article, a recent survey has revealed that more than 5,000 girls under 16 years of age in the Kandy Police Division have been involved in consensual sex.

Attorney-at-Law Dr. Palitha Bandara Subasinghe of Kandy National Hospital revealed that 6,307 complaints on rape of girls under 16 years of age had been received by police stations all over the country from 2018 to 2021 and 5,055 of them had been involved in consensual sex.

Dr.Subasinghe said 132 girls under 16 years of age in 17 police areas in the Kandy police division had been sexually abused for the last three years and the majority of them have been involved in consensual sex. He said only 15 girls for the three years under review had been sexually abused by force.

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