The Absolute Protection Available for the Disabled Children Under the Prevention of Domestic Violence Law; Sri Lankan Perspective

Abstract

The Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (PDVA), No. 34 of 2005 of Sri Lanka specifies the domestic violence as a statutory offence and the law prevails in any circumstances, where a child subjects to or about to be subjected to a domestic violence incident in every instance whichever the statute specified. The study is focused on assessing the accuracy and the effectiveness of the domestic legal mechanisms established in order to protect the rights of the children from refraining domestic violences. The objective of this qualitative study is to appraise the efficiency of the existing domestic legal mechanism established by the statute in order to protect the rights of the children from domestic violence situations with reference to relevant domestic and international legal standards. Furthermore, the study is focused to examine few recognized rights of the children in relation to the domestic violence situations; i.e. Right of equality, right to privacy, right of social security etc. The study specifies few practical difficulties on implementing the introduced mechanism under the statute and appraises the level of protection available towards the rights of the children. The study concludes with pointing and recommending the necessity of guarantying effective intervention of the law and policy makers towards developing sound legal protection for the issues recognised in order to protect the rights of the victimized disabled children of domestic violence.