{"id":72611,"date":"2017-12-09T17:11:23","date_gmt":"2017-12-10T00:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=72611"},"modified":"2017-12-09T17:11:23","modified_gmt":"2017-12-10T00:11:23","slug":"child-abuse-in-dr-mareena-reffais-dehiwela-orphanage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/12\/09\/child-abuse-in-dr-mareena-reffais-dehiwela-orphanage\/","title":{"rendered":"CHILD ABUSE IN DR. MAREENA REFFAI\u2019S DEHIWELA ORPHANAGE\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Source: Ceylon Today\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The Gangodawila Magistrate’s Court on 7 December ordered the Police to speed up their investigations into the sexual assault cum abuse of children at the Darun Nusra orphanage in Dehiwala and refer their findings to the Attorney General’s Department.<\/p>\n

This Muslim orphanage Darun Nusra is run by Al-Muslimaath, of which Dr. Mareena Reffai is the founder.<\/p>\n

All the girls at the orphanage were below 18 years and had been placed under the care of the Department of Probation who had sent the children to this orphanage.<\/p>\n

A silent protest was held in front of the Court, in support of the 18 girls subjected to sexual abuse while they were in care of this Muslim orphanage, and against the Muslim perpetrator who committed the offence. The protest was organized by a collective of various humanitarian organisations, activists and volunteers. The perpetrator – 62-year-old Mohamed Sarippuge Mohar, was living at the orphanage premises.<\/p>\n

The perpetrator is being accused under one charge of grave sexual assault and eight charges of sexual abuse. However, he is presently out on bail.<\/p>\n

Shiraz Noordeen, the Counsel representing several teenagers, noted that the fact that the Police investigation with regard to the case had not been concluded has resulted in justice being delayed. “The lethargic process of the Police investigation has undermined this case.” Accordingly, the Magistrate ordered the Kohuwala Police to conclude the investigations and refer the case to the Attorney General’s Department for advice.<\/p>\n

The group of counsels representing the teenage orphans informed the Court that the Kohuwala Police had failed to record the statement of a volunteer teacher at the orphanage.<\/p>\n

The National Child Protection Agency is presently investigating the issue and preparing its report.<\/p>\n

Ceylon Today has previously learnt that Dr. Reffai had, despite being notified on repeated occasions of “the despicable act of sexual molestation of the girls at Darun Nusra, which were committed by the suspect and had been taking place since 2015,”, turned a blind eye to it and continued to employ the perpetrator until he was arrested this year.<\/p>\n

Source: Ceylon Today\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane\u00a0\u00a0Source: Ceylon Today\u00a0 The Gangodawila Magistrate’s Court on 7 December ordered the Police to speed up their investigations into the sexual assault cum abuse of children at the Darun Nusra orphanage in Dehiwala and refer their findings to the Attorney General’s Department. This Muslim orphanage Darun Nusra is run by Al-Muslimaath, of which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-daya-hewapathirane"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72611","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=72611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}