Sri Lanka: Women’s
Insecurity in the North and East
Asia Report
N°217 20 Dec 2011
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Women in Sri
Lanka’s predominantly Tamil-speaking north and east are facing a desperate lack
of security in the aftermath of the long civil war. Today many still live in
fear of violence from various sources. Those who fall victim to it have little
means of redress. Women’s economic security is precarious, and their physical
mobility is limited. The heavily militarised and centralised control of the
north and east – with almost exclusively male, Sinhalese security forces –
raises particular problems for women there in terms of their safety, sense of
security and ability to access assistance. They have little control over their
lives and no reliable institutions to turn to. The government has mostly
dismissed women’s security issues and exacerbated fears, especially in the
north and east. The international community has failed to appreciate and
respond effectively to the challenges faced by women and girls in the former
war zone. A concerted and immediate effort to empower and protect them is
needed.
Thirty years of
civil war between the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
has resulted in tens of thousands of female-headed households in the north and
east. Families throughout those areas experienced many waves of conflict,
displacement and militarisation. In the war’s final stages in 2008 and 2009,
hundreds of thousands of civilians in the northern Vanni region endured serial
displacements and months of being shelled by the government and held hostage by
the LTTE, after which they were herded into closed government camps. Most lost
nearly all possessions and multiple family members, many of whom are still
missing or detained as suspected LTTE cadres. When families eventually returned
to villages, homes and land had been destroyed or taken over by the military.
There was less physical destruction in the east, which was retaken by the
government in 2007, but those communities have also suffered and now live under
the tight grip of the military and central government.
These events
have left women and girls vulnerable at multiple levels. In the Vanni in
particular, their housing is inadequate, and they have limited means of transportation
and employment opportunities. Many do not have sufficient funds to feed their
families, let alone to care for those who were maimed or disabled in the war.
The continuing search for the missing and the struggle to maintain relations
with the detained are further strains. Children’s education was severely
disrupted for years, and many are only slowly returning to school. The trauma
of the war, especially the final months in 2009, is evident in every family.
The conflict has badly damaged the social fabric.
The consequences
for women and girls have been severe. There have been alarming incidents of
gender-based violence, including domestic violence within the Tamil community,
in part fuelled by rising alcohol use by men. Many women have been forced into
prostitution or coercive sexual relationships. Some have also been trafficked
within the country and abroad. Pregnancies among teenagers have increased. Fear
of abuse has further restricted women’s movement and impinged on education and
employment opportunities. The fact that women must rely on the military for
everyday needs not only puts them at greater risk of gender-based violence, but
also prevents them from building their own capacity within communities. The
island-wide spate of attacks on women by individuals labelled “grease yakas (devils)”,
which reached the north and east in August and into September 2011, and the
lack of serious response by the security forces (except to brutally crack-down
on protesters across the north and east, and especially in Jaffna), exposed the
near-complete collapse of trust in law enforcement.
Militarisation
and the government’s refusal to devolve power or restore local civilian
administration in the north and east have directly contributed to this complex
societal distress, which comes on the heels of the collapse of the repressive
regime run by the LTTE. Over decades, the Tigers created an elaborate coercive
structure around which people organised their lives. The absence of this
structure has left many adrift. While this has had some important positive
consequences, including for women, the devastation of the final year of war and
the replacement of the LTTE in effect by the military and its proxies negate
the gains for these communities. The experience and perception of pervasive
insecurity are having profound harmful effects on women’s lives.
Instead of
recognising these vulnerabilities and taking steps to protect women and girls,
the government has largely ignored them. The heavily militarised and centralised
systems of control in the north and east exclude most residents, but especially
women from decisions that affect their security. While there are some female
civilian officials and some programs nominally directed at women, all
activities occur within a male, Sinhalese, military structure. The government
has constrained access for international humanitarian organisations and even
more so for local civil society. The vision of security the government has
pursued is a masculine, militarised one. Human security is lacking.
The current
situation in the north and east comes in the wake of serious accusations of
sexual violence by the military against Tamil women at the end of the war and
in the months thereafter. There is credible evidence to support some of these
accusations. Yet cultural stigma, decades of impunity, and the government’s
refusal to allow any independent investigation of the end of the war and its
aftermath make it impossible to determine the full extent of misconduct. In a
well-known rape case in the north in June 2010, criminal prosecution has been
pending for eighteen months against four soldiers following concerted pressure
from local women’s groups. But this is a striking exception.
The government’s
overwhelming response to allegations of sexual violence has been to reject
them, as it has done with video footage that shows what appears to be Sinhalese
soldiers making sexual comments while handling the dead, naked bodies of female
suspected LTTE fighters, some of whom have their hands bound. The long-awaited
report of the government’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC)
was delivered to the president on 20 November 2011 and released to the public
on 16 December. Among its recommendations is one that the government initiate yet
another “independent investigation” into the footage, which officials
repeatedly have said was “faked”. Another government assessment of it now –
without a complementary international one focused on alleged sexual violence –
risks further feeding Tamil fears of such violence and the exploitation of
those fears by some diaspora activists.
The
international response to women’s insecurity has been unnecessarily muted. Not
only have Sri Lanka’s international partners, including the United Nations,
failed to speak out publicly and clearly about threats to women and allegations
of abuse, but they have agreed to work within militarised structures that have
amplified vulnerability and reduced transparency. Unless they do more to demand
changes to those structures and to target funding and assistance at initiatives
that can help protect and empower women, their engagement will be ineffectual,
at best.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The following
recommendations supplement and complement Crisis Group’s continuing calls – as
set forth in Crisis Group Asia Report N°209, Reconciliation in Sri Lanka:
Harder than Ever, 18 July 2011 – for an international inquiry into the
alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both the LTTE and
government forces in the final stages of the war, as well as for the
restoration of the rule of law and an end to corruption, impunity and
authoritarianism throughout the country. While the government has promoted the
LLRC as the cornerstone of its post-war accountability process, serious deficiencies
in its independence, mandate and witness protection capacity have crippled it.
The LLRC’s report, which acknowledges important grievances and makes a number
of sensible recommendations, ultimately fails to question the government’s
version of events with any rigour. Thus, in terms of accountability, the
question remains: is the government willing and able to hold accountable those
responsible for alleged crimes? To date it has failed to demonstrate that it
is.
To the
Government of Sri Lanka:
1. Acknowledge
that women and girls in the north and east face serious threats to their
economic and physical security and commit to reduce those threats, including
by:
a) reducing the
military presence in those areas substantially by closing military camps and
checkpoints, returning all property seized by the military to rightful owners,
ending the military’s involvement in commercial activities, fully demobilising
troops – including investigating and prosecuting alleged abuses – and
reintegrating soldiers with their families and into their communities;
b) devolving
power to provincial and local government structures and officials in the north
and east, including by expediting elections for the Northern Provincial Council
and decentralising decision-making on economic development;
c) reforming the
police presence in those areas by recruiting male and female Tamils and Muslims
at all ranks and giving them real authority to better reflect the populations
served, and by training the police to anticipate and respond to the security
needs of women and girls, including as regards gender-based violence; and
d) prioritising
reconstruction and development projects that will protect the rights of and
empower women in those areas, including by committing government funds (see
Recommendation 5 below for suggested projects).
2. Revise
government policies that are increasing women’s vulnerability in the north and
east, including by:
a) ending what
is still in effect a state of emergency and military rule and ensuring anti-terrorism
laws and practices are brought into line with international legal standards;
b) making
available to family members the names and locations of all individuals detained
for suspected involvement in the LTTE, including those in rehabilitation centres;
providing detainees with access to lawyers and ensuring basic due process
rights; and allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to
monitor conditions of detention and facilitate family visitation and
communication with detainees in all parts of the country;
c) stopping all
ad hoc visits by the military to women’s homes as well as all surveillance of
alleged former LTTE cadres unless it is demonstrated through a credible
judicial process that they pose a threat to public safety; and otherwise ending
the exercise of civilian functions by the military;
d) issuing
accurate death certificates or declarations of absence for those who were
killed or went missing in the conflict, without compromising the rights of
family members to seek further information or remedies;
e) permitting
full freedom of movement and assembly in the north and east, including for
local women’s organisations; and
f) reducing
restrictions on and improving access for humanitarian and civil society groups,
and allowing them to increase levels of assistance – including to address
psycho-social issues, reproductive health and gender-based violence – with
input from local communities and local women’s groups.
To Sri
Lanka’s International Partners, including China, India, Japan, the U.S., UK, EU
and UN:
3.
Evaluate all aid, investment and engagement in light of the risks of a return
to conflict and of increasing women’s insecurity in the former war zone, and
insist on meeting international standards and ensuring the highest levels of
transparency, external monitoring and non-discriminatory community
participation in setting priorities.
4.
Highlight consistently in public and private communications the issues that
affect all of Sri Lanka’s ethnic communities, including growing
authoritarianism, militarisation, weak rule of law, impunity, corruption and
repression of dissent, as well as gender-based violence and economic inequities
for women.
5. Convene
a high-level meeting of donors and other development partners, including the
World Bank and Asian Development Bank, as well as community leaders and
activists knowledgeable about women’s issues in the north and east, to agree
upon and ratify with the government a strong set of principles for the delivery
and monitoring of assistance – including accountability for past and continuing
human rights abuses; and to fully fund a concrete set of reconstruction and
development projects to be completed in 2012 that will help protect and empower
women in the north and east, such as:
a) a
comprehensive, independent assessment of the needs and vulnerabilities of this
population;
b) expedited
construction of safe, permanent housing and sanitation facilities for those at
greatest risk of violence;
c) training,
equipment and professional support for mobile health clinics staffed in part by
local female residents;
d) support to
and protection for local women’s groups to establish women’s centres for meetings,
training and collective work spaces;
e) a nationwide
program led by ICRC and local non-governmental partners to register and trace
missing persons and facilitate family access to detainees;
f) initiatives
to start collecting comprehensive data on, and better respond to, gender-based
violence, including a nationwide violence-against-women help-line, the
appointment of judicial medical officers (JMOs) for every district, and the
establishment of women-friendly desks in all police stations so women can make
complaints in their own language and in the presence of female officers;
g) training on
gender-based violence and national domestic violence laws for all government
officials and police officers in the north and east; and
h) training on
gender-based violence and national domestic violence laws, reproductive health
education and support, psycho-social support and demobilisation counselling for
current and, as needed, former members of the security forces – provided by
qualified local or international experts, not by other national militaries.
To the UN and
Member States:
6. Endorse
the findings and recommendations of various UN bodies regarding Sri Lanka,
including the forthcoming report of the Secretary-General’s Special
Representative on Conflict-related Sexual Violence; the Secretary-General’s
upcoming review of UN actions during the final stages of the war, as announced
in September 2011; the November 2011 report of the Committee Against Torture;
the April 2011 report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on
Accountability, and the February 2011 report of the Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination against Women – and ensure that the UN system,
including the country team in Sri Lanka, works toward fulfilment of these
recommendations.
7. Take
action on these findings and recommendations, including at the Human Rights
Council session in March 2012 and during Sri Lanka’s second Universal Periodic
Review in September 2012.
8. Ensure,
in particular, that the UN country team in Sri Lanka takes a strong stand to
demand access and speak out about protection concerns, including for women and
girls in the north and east, and that all UN staff and staff for UN-funded
programs working in the north and east are adequately trained on the post-war needs
and concerns of women in those areas and to engage the expertise of local
women’s groups.
9. Review
Sri Lanka’s contributions to UN peacekeeping operations and refrain from
accepting new participation of its troops until there is a credible investigation
of the allegations against the military in the UN panel of experts report.
Colombo/Brussels,
20 December 2011
Human Rights Watch wants security force members to be held criminally liable
Hundreds of thousands of Tamils were displaced during Sri Lanka's bloody civil war
Rt.Hon.Balambihai Murugadas & Dr.Vasanthan 
