Sexual violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka

Sexual violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka
LocationSri Lanka
Date1958–present
Attack type
War rape, sex slavery, sexual abuse
PerpetratorSri Lankan Armed Forces
Indian Peace Keeping Force
Sinhalese mobs
Home guards
Sri Lankan Police
STF
SIS
TMVP
Rape
Types
Effects and motivations
By country
During conflicts
Laws
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Sexual violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka has occurred repeatedly during the island's long ethnic conflict. The first instances of rape of Tamil women by Sinhalese mobs were documented during the 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom.[5] This continued in the 1960s with the deployment of the Sri Lankan Army in Jaffna, who were reported to have molested and occasionally raped Tamil women.[6]

Further rapes of Tamils were carried out by Sinhalese mobs during the 1977, 1981 and 1983 anti-Tamil pogroms.[7][8][9]

Following the outbreak of war, rape was used by the almost entirely Sinhalese Sri Lankan armed forces,[10] in an attempt to collectively punish the Tamil population, who were often seen as being supportive of the LTTE.[11][12][13][note 1] Both Tamil females and males were targeted for rape, including children.[15][16][17] Other groups which committed rape against Tamils included the Indian Peace Keeping Force and Sri Lankan Police.[18][19][11]

The LTTE has been noted for its general lack of use of sexual violence,[20][21][22] though there have been isolated instances of rape of Tamils by LTTE members. Some LTTE members accused of rape faced execution from the leadership.[note 2]

Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who fled to India have also been victims of frequent rape and sex slavery by Indian security guards and intelligence police.[23]

Many rapes went unreported during the conflict due to various factors, including intimidation from the perpetrators, impunity for the crime,[note 3][note 4] and the severe stigma attached to it in conservative Tamil society.[note 5][27][28]

Sex slavery and mass rape of Tamils by government forces peaked at the end of the war in 2009, and persisted in the post-war era, with human rights groups describing it as 'systematic'.[note 6][30]

Government forces consistently deny all the charges of mass rape, with one senior army official saying the following in 2010:

"Throughout their training, our boys are taught to hate the Tigers, they see them as disgusting animals, not fit to live. I am 200 per cent sure that they didn't rape Tamil women. Why would they fuck them if they hate them so much?"[31]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Priyamvatha was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference pulitzercenter.org was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference AI091210 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ International Truth and Justice Project (2014), 5 years on: The White Flag Incident 2009-2014 http://white-flags.org/
  5. ^ Tarzie Vittachi – Emergency '58: The story of the Ceylon race riots (1959), Andre Deutsch
  6. ^ Neil De Votta – Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka, p127
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference lankafreelibrary.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Brian Eads – The Cover Up That Failed – The Prohibited Report From Colombo, London Observer – 20 September 1981
  9. ^ E.M. Thornton & Niththyananthan, R. – Sri Lanka, Island of Terror – An Indictment, (ISBN 0 9510073 0 0), 1984, Appendix A
  10. ^ "Sri Lanka - Ethnic Composition of the Armed Forces". www.country-data.com. Retrieved 3 August 2022.
  11. ^ a b c Wood, Elisabeth Jean (1 March 2009). "Armed Groups and Sexual Violence: When Is Wartime Rape Rare?". Politics & Society. 37 (1): 131–161. doi:10.1177/0032329208329755. ISSN 0032-3292. S2CID 154539643.
  12. ^ Katherine W. Bogen, April 2016, Rape and Sexual Violence: Questionable Inevitability and Moral Responsibility in Armed Conflict, Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark, Volume 2
  13. ^ ""We Will Teach You a Lesson": Sexual Violence against Tamils by Sri Lankan Security Forces". Human Rights Watch. 26 February 2013.
  14. ^ Alexander, Stian (25 March 2016). "Massage from hell for 21-year-old woman as convicted bus flasher gets job at parlour and sniffs her". Daily Mirror. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
  15. ^ Höglund, Kristine (1 September 2019). "Testimony Under Threat: Women's Voices and the Pursuit of Justice in Post-War Sri Lanka". Human Rights Review. 20 (3): 361–382. doi:10.1007/s12142-019-0549-3. ISSN 1874-6306.
  16. ^ Amnesty International, January 2002, SRI LANKA Rape in custody, AI Index: ASA 37/001/2002 p.3
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference dbs was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ Amnesty International on human rights violations before and after the Indo-Sri Lanka accord – Tamil Times, June 1988, p6-7
  19. ^ "Welcome to UTHR, Sri Lanka". 29 October 2015. Archived from the original on 29 October 2015. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
  20. ^ "No, war doesn't have to mean rape". Women’s Media Center. 2 July 2013. Retrieved 20 May 2023.
  21. ^ "Report of the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL)" (PDF). Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 16 September 2015. p. 117. OISL did not find any information to suggest that the LTTE was responsible for sexual violence, and different sources indicated that anyone found responsible for sexual abuse or violence risked harsh punishment by the LTTE.
  22. ^ "Are Sri Lankan officers ordering soldiers to sexually assault Tamil detainees?". Washington Post. 16 November 2017. Retrieved 20 May 2023.
  23. ^ "Among the walking dead of India's refugee camps". www.jdslanka.org. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
  24. ^ Asian Human Rights Commission, September 2011 – SRI LANKA: A former air force officer rapes a ten-year-old girl http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-116-2011/
  25. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bruce Fein95 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  26. ^ Amnesty International, August 1996 – SRI LANKA Wavering commitment to human rights, p19
  27. ^ Amnesty International, August 1996 – SRI LANKA Wavering commitment to human rights, p9, 27
  28. ^ "Welcome to UTHR, Sri Lanka". uthr.org. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
  29. ^ Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), 12 January 2000, Crime Against Humanity: Systematic Detention, Torture, Rape and Murder as Weapon of War in Sri Lanka (AHRC UA Index 000112)
  30. ^ "'Tamils still being raped and tortured' in Sri Lanka". BBC News. 9 November 2013. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
  31. ^ Mohan, Rohini (2016). "The Fear of Rape: Tamil Women and Wartime Sexual Violence". In Jayawardena, K; Pinto-Jayawardena, K (eds.). The Search for Justice: The Sri Lankan Papers. Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia. New Delhi: Zubaan. pp. 237–295.


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