Rape & Murder Of Another School Girl In Jaffna
By Kamani Jinadasa –May 17, 2015
Kamani Jinadasa
Lifting The Veil Of Silence Around Sexual Violence Against Women & Girls In Sri Lanka
Three months ago in Vanni a 16 year old Tamil girl, Saranya Selvarasa passed away in the Kilinochchi Base hospital. Saranya was orphaned after the death of her parents. Her father died during the war in 2006 and after the war her mother passed away in an accident. Saranya and her two younger brothers were adopted by their grandmother, who had been doing the best she could to care for them under very difficult conditions. When Saranya’s grandmother tried to seek answers for her granddaughter’s death she was informed by the doctor who handled her case that she had been gang raped by at least three men. The police visited the grandmother’s home after Saranya’s death had been reported in the local media. They tried to pressure Saranya’s grandmother to conceal the gang rape and say instead that Saranya had died due to a mental disorder. The police then threatened to have the grandmother imprisoned on charges of “damaging Saranya’s character” if she failed to comply with their demands[1]. Her grandmother refused to comply with their threats.
As I write this article the news of another brutal rape and murder of another school girl in Jaffna, Vidhiya has surfaced[2].
The reality:
Saranya’s story and now Vidhiya’s, are not new to post war Sri Lanka. Horrific stories of sexual violence perpetrated against Tamil women and girls by the military have been seeping into our news feeds sporadically, mainly via international news agencies[3]. What makes it even more disturbing is that these stories are being brushed off, conveniently ignored and even discredited, claiming that they are nothing more than attempts to damage the government’s reputation. While rates of sexual violence against Tamil women, children and men have not been measured, there is substantial anecdotal and plausible evidence to indicate that this is happening on a regular basis with little or no accountability on the part of the perpetrators in the North. The manner in which the lives of victims change after such experiences cannot be truly captured. Who can a survivor turn to when the perpetrators are more likely to be the military or law enforcement officials?
At a wider level, a report which sought to capture prevalence rates of violence against women and girls (VAWG) reflected that 14% of men in the sample from four districts in Sri Lanka had admitted to perpetrating rape[4]. Among men who did admit to perpetrating sexual violence including rape, over half of the men stated they were motivated by feelings of sexual entitlement[5]. More alarmingly 28% of the men that had perpetrated acts of sexual violence including rape against women said that they had been in the 15-19 year age group at the time they committed their first rape. The same report calls attention to very high levels of impunity experienced by these men who admitted to perpetrating rape. Accordingly 97% of the men in these four districts had faced no legal consequences for their actions[6].
