{"id":69963,"date":"2017-09-22T14:17:44","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T21:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=69963"},"modified":"2017-09-22T14:17:44","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T21:17:44","slug":"sri-lanka-probes-longest-saree-wedding-for-using-child-labour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/09\/22\/sri-lanka-probes-longest-saree-wedding-for-using-child-labour\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka probes &#8216;longest saree&#8217; wedding for using child labour"},"content":{"rendered":"<footer class=\"footer-author\">\n<div class=\"byline component  \">\n<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>\u00a0<span class=\"byline__author-name\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/authors\/our-foreign-staff\/\">Our Foreign Staff<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Courtesy The\u00a0 Telegraph (UK)<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"article-date component   \"><span class=\"component-content\"><time class=\"article-date-published\" datetime=\"2017-09-22T17:47+0100\">22 SEPTEMBER 2017 \u2022 5:47PM<\/time><\/span><\/span><\/footer>\n<article data-insert-mobile-adslot=\"\">\n<div class=\"articleBodyText version-2 section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-text component  version-2\">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">A<\/span>Sri Lankan couple is under investigation for deploying hundreds of school children to carry the train of the bride&#8217;s\u00a0saree\u00a0during a wedding ceremony, authorities said Friday.<\/p>\n<p>About 250 students of a state-owned school carried the train of the two-mile long\u00a0saree\u00a0worn by the bride as she and the groom walked down a main road in the central district of Kandy on Thursday, local media reported.<\/p>\n<p>Another 100 students served as flower girls at the wedding.<\/p>\n<p>The students were from a school named after Central Province Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayaka who was a special guest at the wedding, according to media reports, which said the\u00a0saree\u00a0was the longest ever worn by a bride in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">T<\/span>he National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) said it was probing the incident. &#8220;We have started an investigation,&#8221; NCPA Chairman Marini de Livera said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are going all out because we don&#8217;t want this to become a trend.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged\">D<\/span>e Livera said deploying students for such ceremonies during school hours was against the law, with violators facing up to 10 years in prison.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;What they (the wedding party) did is a violation of child rights,&#8221; de Livera said. &#8220;Depriving children of education, risking their security and harming their dignity are criminal offences.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Our Foreign Staff\u00a0\u00a0Courtesy The\u00a0 Telegraph (UK) 22 SEPTEMBER 2017 \u2022 5:47PM ASri Lankan couple is under investigation for deploying hundreds of school children to carry the train of the bride&#8217;s\u00a0saree\u00a0during a wedding ceremony, authorities said Friday. About 250 students of a state-owned school carried the train of the two-mile long\u00a0saree\u00a0worn by the bride as she [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}