State Violence in Sri Lanka - World Organisation Against Torture

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State Violence in SRI LANKA
in detention clearly constitutes a gender-specific form of racial discrimination.
It had been estimated that a Tamil woman is raped by members of the armed
forces or police every two weeks and that every two months a Tamil woman is
gang-raped and murdered by the Sri Lankan security forces. 9
The actual incidence of rape and sexual violence committed by police and
security forces during this period is likely to be far higher than that which has
been reported. It is useful to note that fear and shame discourage women in
Sri Lanka from reporting acts of sexual violence. Fear of social ostracism and
retaliation, combined with the widespread lack of gender-sensitivity amongst
police, judicial and medical personnel, are powerful deterrents to women
reporting violence and pursuing legal action against the perpetrators. 10
Further elements that dissuade women from reporting crimes of violence
committed against them include the prevailing climate of impunity for acts of
sexual violence against women from ethnic minorities and the fact that
women who are victims of violence frequently have no safe place to stay during
investigations or trials. 11
III. Impunity for violence against women
Even though the ceasefire between the government troops and the LTTE has
lasted for over a year, many women and children continue to suffer multiple
difficulties and trauma as a result of having lost their husbands, being displaced
and having their mobility severely affected. The severe violence that
women had to endure in the past remains a constant reminder of their helplessness
in a country where the State has failed to deal with the plight of
women affected by the war. There has been an obvious inability of the legal
system to effectively deal with the perpetrators of the violence.
9 Women Against Rape, oral intervention by Ms. Deirdre McConnell during the 57th
session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, 10 April 2001.
10 British Refugee Council, Sri Lanka Monitor, No. 138, July 1999. “Local agencies say
many rape victims do not report their ordeal for fear of retaliation or ostracization from
the community. Most rape cases remain uninvestigated.”
11 Women and Media Collective, Women’s Rights Watch 1998, Colombo 1999, p. 8.