Involuntary Displacement and Resettlement — Policy and ... - CEPA

Batticaloa and Sampur (in the Trincomalee district) both come under theEastern Provincial Council and therefore the displaced teachers have beenable to get attachment to Batticaloa schools. It must be noted that theprocedure of getting attachment has been relatively easy and quicker thanthe regular transfer process.Coming back to the case of Household 66, Table 1 reports that governmentteaching work has continued even after displacement. In fact, the additionalallowances given to government staff island-wide, during this period, havemeant that the earned income of Household 66 has increased afterdisplacement. As a result the household has been able to be well above theOPL.The final case, Household 8, was a wealthy Asset Holder in Sampur. Thehousehold completely relied on assets for income. As a result, whendisplacement deprived them of the assets, the income of the householddropped dramatically. To aggravate matters further, in spite of their wealth,the household did not have any cash at the time of displacement due to awedding in the family. However, mortgage of gold jewellery and debt fromrelatives (obtained during displacement) totalling Rs.75,000, could be madeuse of during displacement. Even with these resources the household couldnot rise beyond the OPL. It is critically important that the household has notbeen able to earn any income after displacement. The household head hasnot been able to mentally adjust to the reduced social status of working as acasual worker, which is probably the only option open to him. In addition tothe social pressure there is also the issue of him not being familiar with thatkind of manual work − all his working life he has been an entrepreneur.7 Livelihoods in Sampur before DisplacementAs described in Section 3 the economy of Sri Lanka has been affected by theongoing conflict over the last two-and-a-half decades. This effect was feltdifferently in different regions of the country. The economy of the Northernand Eastern part of the country was the most affected by this (Abeyratne2004; Abeyratne and Lakshman 2005; Närman and Vidanapathirana 2005).Even within the region, the conflict has had varying degrees of economicimpact. For instance, while all of Trincomalee district was severely affectedby the conflict, localities of this district experienced the economic impact ofthe conflict differently. Since Sampur was under the LTTE control for a longperiod − punctuated by a couple of short periods of government control −71