by Minnalkodi Sivan – BASICS Issue #18
A nine-year-old Tamil girl was hospitalized after being raped by three Sri Lankan Army (SLA) soldiers. A man who protested the rape was later found dead in a nearby lake and soldiers went door-to-door threatening villagers who started to protest. Reports indicate that the mother filed a complaint. But given systemic impunity of Tamil women’s sexual offenders, chances are this grade 5 student will never receive justice…
49 Tamil women detained in the concentration camps were arrested by the Terrorism Investigation Department and taken to Boosa camp – a detention center notorious for torture, rape, murder and disappearances. Nothing is known of their whereabouts ever since…
An 8-months pregnant woman, Manju, who is one out of the 254 Tamil Asylum seekers stranded on a boat in Indonesia since October 2009, has no guarantee from the Indonesian government that she will safely deliver her child and have access to medical care.
Their boat was Australia-bound and was intercepted by the Indonesian navy upon Australia’s request and now no country is willing to provide asylum. This leaves the 254 Tamils stranded in a country that is not a signatory of the conventions on refugee rights and denies them access to basic human necessities.
The Indonesian government has close ties with the Sri Lankan government and is willing to deport the refugees back to Sri Lanka where they are sure to face further abuses.
Despite the 30+ years of abuses Tamil women have faced in Sri Lanka, the current headlines about the country in any given media sound something along these lines: “Court blocks defeated Sri Lanka candidate’s release bid” – referring to the arrest of the Ex-Army General who was a Presidential candidate who lost and was arrested right after the elections.
It is interesting how such news always ends up on the front pages while news on the continuous war waged on Tamil women’s bodies are carefully wrapped under the blanket of an ominous silence.
Tamil women are thrown to the bottom of the ladder. They are the most oppressed among the oppressed. They are raped, tortured, sexually abused, abducted, forced into abortions and sterilizations, and murdered. Their perpetrators are hardly ever prosecuted.
Their victimization and extinction is reflected in the fact that the Tamil population in Sri Lanka has decreased by 30% since 1948. Their voices have been silenced under the guns and subjugation of the Sri Lankan government. Their stories buried with their mass graves dug by the SLA to hide their lust for violence and blood – forgotten forever.
The imbedded culture of impunity has ranked Sri Lanka as the 3rd worst violator of Women’s Rights according to the South Asian Human Rights Index 2008. Even when Tamil women have resorted to armed resistance, their dead bodies end up being denigrated and stripped naked by the Army and captured on cameras/videos. Dignity and respect is denied to these sisters even in death.
The struggles of Tamil women are suppressed or ignored in the big media outlets around the world and so there is a desperate need for regular people to advocate of their behalf. Tamil sisters will be mobilizing for IWD here in Toronto with the Migrant Women’s Coordinating Body – watch out for our banners!
Join us in our struggles and stand in solidarity with women’s struggles globally.
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