 The government says there should be no more homeless children |
Street children in Sri Lanka's capital city, Colombo, are to be rounded up in the next few days, police say.
The authorities say the children will be taken to magistrates' courts to ensure that they are sent to school.
If the parents or guardians of the street children can be traced, they too will be summoned.
The decision to take action follows an order from a juvenile court magistrate that the police detect all children who are not in school.
Superintendent Ranjit Gunasekera said that female police officers would round up all such children and bring them to court.
If it happened at night, the children would be taken to a police Children and Women Bureau in the city.
But the children would not be remanded in custody, he said.
He added that if the parents or guardians could be traced, they would be summoned separately for questioning in court.
He believed the magistrates would direct that the children attend school, and if the family could not afford this, the government would fund it.
If guardians could not be traced, he said, there were centres which could look after the children's needs.
Ambitiously, he hoped most of the operation could be completed by this Friday and said there were enough police to carry it out although he declined to estimate the number of children involved.
"There should be no more children in the street," the police spokesman said.
Under Sri Lankan law all children aged 14 and under must attend school.
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