Sri Lanka: The Plight of Tamil War Widows - Forgotten Victims by Kidna Selva

United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Chief Michelle Bachelet has received a mandate to collect evidence of human rights violations during ’s long civil war, which ended in May 2009. It has been estimated that more than 100,000 died, around 65,000 remain missing and millions were uprooted from their homes during the violence, concentrated mainly in the island’s ethnic Tamil majority Eastern and Northern Provinces. Yet despite the government pumping billions of dollars into infrastructure development in the North and East areas, little has been done for the women who lost their husbands.

Surveys carried by charities and NGOs confirmed that there are around 90,000 widows in the North and East of Sri Lanka. Although the War Widows form a large majority, other calamities such as the Tsunami of 2004 and extra judicial killings contributed to the total figure. There is another category, which is referred as Half Widows who do not know the whereabouts of their husbands. This is because of a large number of former Tamil Tiger members “disappeared” without trace after surrendering to the Sri Lankan armed forces.

Sri Lanka has one of the world’s highest number of enforced disappearances, with a backlog of between 60,000 and 100,000 disappearances since the late 1980s according to data compiled by the Amnesty International.

According to International Crisis Group, Tamil-speaking women in Sri Lanka’s north and east pushed for accountability and truth during the country’s civil war but have been marginalized during the transitional justice process. The responsible international community should include their voices and address their injustices and difficult economic situation to ensure lasting peace in Sri Lanka.

Many international organizations like the International Crisis Group are expecting the recently adopted the UNHRC Resolution on Sri Lanka and the evidence collection mechanism prescribed in the Resolution should start compiling evidence reported via reliable media outlets and collected by international human rights organization relating to sexual violence perpetrated by the by Sri Lankan armed forces.

Rapes against helpless Tamil women in Sri Lanka have been used in riots, pogroms, police, and military operations as community conflict grew and became a war over self-determination. After the military defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, along with a massacre of unarmed civilians, the Sri Lankan armed forces went on an orgy of rape of the remaining Tamils, civilians, and Tamil Tiger cadres alike.

The sexual abuses in the Internally Displaced Camps (IDPs) created by the Sri Lankan government to accommodate displaced persons at the end of war, aptly described by some as “Concentration Camps”, have been documented by numerous sources, including human rights organizations.

The record indicated, systematic rape of Tamil women in custody and in areas under control of the Sri Lankan security forces, and sexual abuse of Tiger women cadres caught during combat, had occurred from as early as September 1996 when Krishanthy Kumarasamy, a 17-year-old high school girl, was murdered after being stopped and raped at a Sri Lanka sentry point at Kaithadi, . The brutal gang rape and gruesome murder of Krishanthy Kumaraswamy and her mother, brother and a neighbour on September 7, 1996 by the Sri Lankan army soldiers and policemen shocked the conscience of the civilized world.

Media outlets reported shocking story of another Tamil woman who was allegedly raped and killed by the Sri Lankan armed forces. She was taken by the security forces on May 18, 2009. The Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence initially claimed 53 troops killed during the last battle. Her name is in the Ministry of Defence’s published list – “Identified Tiger leaders who were killed on 18 May 2009 by 53 Division troops “– as “ – Issei Piriya – Communications/Publicity Wing”.

In November 2018, the Pulitzer Centre examined the post-war situation in the Sri Lanka Northern areas, including tensions between the Buddhist Sri Lankan government and marginalized Muslim and Tamil communities. The project focused on the war widows who have lost their husbands, land, and livelihoods. The authors Saman and Obert specifically documented women's personal struggles through a mixture of reportage about their daily lives and the various challenges they face.

In November 2013, as the Commonwealth leaders prepared to meet at a summit in the Sri Lankan capital, , allegations of rape and torture by the Sri Lankan security forces emerged, some of them occurring four years after the civil war ended.

The Sri Lankan government says it does not tolerate torture and the military says there were only a few incidents of sexual violence involving soldiers in the north of Sri Lanka from 2007 to 2012. But a Human Rights Watch report documented 62 cases of sexual violence involving the security forces after the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka and said their evidence strongly suggested the abuse was widespread and systematic.

According to the research carried out in 2019 and reported in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, sexual violence is believed to have been widespread during the Sri Lankan ethnic war. This unobtrusive method reveals that around 13 percent of the Sri Lankan population has personally experienced sexual assault during the war, a prevalence ten times higher than elicited by direct questioning. The research also identified vulnerable groups in this regard: unarmed civilians who collaborated with rebel groups and the male-displaced population suspected of collaboration with the Tamil Tiger movement. The evidence gathered from this research supported the asymmetric use of sexual violence by government forces.

Lack of safety and a culture of impunity are problems for Tamil Widows, in terms of their safety, sense of security and ability to access assistance. Particularly they live in the heavily militarized and centralized control of the north and east – with almost exclusively male, Sinhalese Sri Lankan security forces.

Various human rights organizations, UN Special Rapporteurs, several Tamil activists in Sri Lanka and from Tamil Nadu in , and in the diaspora have been stating much before the so-called end of the war in 2009 that rape was used as a weapon of genocidal war by the Sri Lankan armed forces. Today Tamil women living in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka do not have the safety to report sexual violence by the Sri Lankan armed forces stationed in the North and East Areas. Will the UNHRC Resolution deal with the plight of the Tamil War Widow, the Sexual Violence that took place and the continuing abuses and vulnerability of these women? Will these war widows be forgotten victims of the brutal ethnic war in Sri Lanka?