KaydenCares Framework publishes open consultations, explains the laws Sri Lanka needs, hosts an AI legal information assistant, and leads active campaigns for the protections vulnerable people deserve.
This campaign is personal. My mother was isolated, medicated without consent, and stripped of her identity by family members in Sri Lanka — and the law could not touch them. My father's estate — built on a lifetime of generosity and Buddhist values of charity — is being dismantled by those who saw only money where he saw legacy. There was no legal framework to say: this person cannot consent to this. There was no independent body to investigate. There was nothing.
I built the KaydenCares Framework so that no other family in Sri Lanka has to face what mine did. A Mental Capacity Act is not a bureaucratic nicety. It is the difference between a person living with dignity and a person being consumed by those around them.
— Soshana Wijeratne Austin, Co-Founder, KaydenCares Framework
Protecting the Elderly, the Disabled and the Vulnerable from Abuse, Exploitation and Neglect
Every day in Sri Lanka, elderly people with dementia lose their homes, their savings and their dignity — and the law does nothing. Adults with learning disabilities are denied choices about their own lives. People who have suffered strokes have their finances controlled by family members with no oversight, no accountability and no legal requirement to act in their best interests.
This is not because Sri Lankans do not care. It is because there is no law.
Sri Lanka currently operates under the Mental Diseases Ordinance of 1873 — a law written over 150 years ago, before dementia was understood, before the concept of mental capacity existed in law, and before the modern era of human rights. Every other comparable nation has moved on. Sri Lanka has not.
The United Kingdom enacted the Mental Capacity Act in 2005. Ireland in 2015. India in 2017. Even nations with fewer resources have recognised that the law must protect those who cannot protect themselves.
KaydenCares Framework calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to enact a Mental Capacity Act — one that:
• Presumes capacity unless proven otherwise • Requires a best interests assessment before any major decision is made for a person who lacks capacity • Provides a legal framework for Advance Directives so people can plan for their future • Establishes an independent oversight body with the power to investigate and act • Protects the elderly, the disabled and the vulnerable from financial, physical and emotional abuse by those they trust
Sri Lanka's population is ageing rapidly. By 2041, one in four Sri Lankans will be over 60. The window to build the legal infrastructure to protect them is closing. We cannot afford to wait another 150 years.
Sign this petition. Share your story. Make your voice heard.
Read our plain-language explanations of LPA, ADRT, RESPECT, Guardianship and the Mental Capacity Act — or ask our AI assistant any question.