WOMEN  AGAINST  RAPE

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57^th Session of the Commission on Human Rights - 2001

Agenda Item 12 (a) - VIOLENCE  AGAINST  WOMEN

Sir / Madam Chairperson,

There are no human rights in this world without women’s rights. There may be many conventions on Human Rights but without real guarantee of women’s rights they will not lead to justice.

Today, who are the victims of the worst human rights violations in areas of armed conflict, ethnic war etc? Women and children!

It is crystal clear that sexual violence used to subjugate and destroy a people, as a form of ethnic cleansing is an abhorrent and heinous war crime. These persistent and gross abuses, flagrant denials of the human rights of women and their right to life itself, demand an urgent response from international human rights bodies.

Women Against Rape has invited me, representative of the Tamil Centre for Human Rights (TCHR), to bring before the Commission, evidence of the systematic rape of Tamil women in Sri Lanka perpetrated as a weapon of war by Sri Lankan security forces with impunity.

For twenty-five years Women Against Rape has spoken out with, and on behalf of women rape victims in various forums.

In the last, 52^nd session of the Sub-Commission on Promotion and Protection of human rights, a member and expert, Mr Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, raised the specific situation of Tamil women under the agenda item on slavery-like practices during wartime.

Sir / Madam Chairperson,

TCHR has gathered detailed and specific documentation on the widespread violations of the human rights of women rape victims.

*         On average, a Tamil woman is raped by members of the Sri Lankan security forces every two weeks. The real number is inevitably higher since many cases are unreported.

*          Every two months a Tamil woman is gang-raped and murdered by the Sri Lankan  security forces.

Personnel from the Special Task Force, the Sri Lankan Navy, Army and Police and Home guards operating with the Sri Lankan army, have raped Tamil women. Senior personnel such as captains are known to have been involved in gang-rape and murders, and have been named by victims and witnesses, but none has ever been convicted nor punished.

Sir / Madam Chairperson,

I could present before you a catalogue of rape and gang-rape murder cases which have been committed by the Sri Lankan security forces under cover of twenty-seven years of Emergency Rule and twenty-two years of Prevention of Terrorism Act in Sri Lanka.

*            However, this august forum has already heard in the past, the internationally high-lighted case of 17 year old Krishanthy Kumaraswamy, gang-raped and murdered in 1996, which created a pathway for the discovery of several mass graves in the Jaffna Peninsula in the North of the island of Sri Lanka.

*          You have also heard of the cases of Murugesupillai Koneswary who was gang-raped and murdered by security force personnel in May 1997, and whose attackers inserted a grenade into her vagina and blew her body apart to destroy all evidence.

*          The cases of 12-year old Pushpalamar, 21 year old Ida Hamilitta, 29 year old Sarathambhal and 70 year old Poonamanai Saravanai have also been brought to your notice. These are a few of the cases.

Sir / Madam Chairperson,

For the concern of this Commission I would like to bring before you two very recent cases currently in the limelight. There has been ample condemnation of these brutal atrocities by religious leaders, parliamentarians, social workers, local human rights activists, universities and law associations.

On March 19^th 2001, the first day of this Commission, Sivamani Weerakon, young mother of three children, and pregnant 22-year-old Wijikala Nanthan, were stripped naked, tortured and gang-raped by police from the Mannar Counter Subversive Unit (CSU) unit in Sri Lanka. After the horrific rape ordeal, Sivamani was hung upside-down, and tied by hands and feet to a pole suspended between two tables. She and Wijikala were tortured and poked in their genitals throughout the night until dawn. The draconian Emergency Regulations and Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) allow the arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and rape of Tamil women to occur with impunity.

Sir, any human being can feel the pain and acute distress of this horrible and barbaric act.

Several international NGOs have appealed to the President of Sri Lanka, who herself is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, to investigate these atrocities against women, in a country which produced the world’s first woman Prime Minister.

We welcome the historic judgement last February of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia where for the first time rape and sexual slavery were legally acknowledged as crimes against humanity, for which perpetrators can and must be held to account. This verdict is a significant step for women’s rights.

Sir / Madam Chairperson,

We hope that many of you have seen recent highlights in the Netherlands media and some other international media about the case filed on March 19^th 2001, by a leading Dutch human rights lawyer Cornelius Schoorlon, requesting the Chief prosecutor in Amsterdam to authorise the arrest of the visiting President of Sri Lanka, Chandrika Kumaratunga, on the basis of her responsibility, as commander in chief of the armed forces for acts of torture and crimes against humanity.

Sir / Madam Chairperson,

We urge the Commission on Human Rights, as a responsible human rights body, to take meaningful action and to appoint a country rapporteur to Sri Lanka to look into the situation of the systematic rape of Tamil women.

Thank you.