A white paper by Nimmi Gowrinathan and Kate Cronin-Furman, City University of New York Colin Powell School, August 28, 2015
Tamil Women in Post-War Sri Lanka Nimmi Gowrinathan Kate Cronin-Furman
ABSTRACT
In this report we document the negative impacts of 6 years of militarization on Tamil women’s lives in Sri Lanka. Based on over fifty interviews in the former conflict zone, we uncovered a very disturbing dynamic, in which efforts to protect women from sexual violence end up undermining their political and economic agency, making them even more vulnerable to victimization. Tamil women in Northern Sri Lanka still face the risk of rape and harassment by the security forces present throughout the region, but their lives are even more negatively impacted by the climate of fear and by a worrying uptick in violence against women within the Tamil community. The ever-present threat of violence by the military has led women to lead tightly circumscribed lives, limiting their daily activities in order to minimize their risk of sexual assault. Their reduced participation in public life keeps them in the home, where they are increasingly vulnerable to violence at the hands of the men in their lives, many of whom are also struggling with the after-effects of wartime trauma. And the measures taken by the community, by the state, and by international actors to address their needs have only made the situation worse. Hasty marriage for protection, well-being schemes that entail isolation and exposure to state agents, and dis-empowering livelihoods programs have further undermined their economic and political position.
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Conclusions The human rights context for Tamil women in 2015 is heavily determined by the trauma of the war’s cataclysmic end and the subsequent 6 years of militarization in the former conflict zone. Women in the north still face the risk of rape and harassment by the security forces present throughout the region, but their lives are even more negatively impacted by the climate of fear and by a worrying uptick in violence against women within the Tamil community. The ever-present threat of violence by the military has led women to lead tightly circumscribed lives, limiting their daily activities in order to minimize their risk of sexual assault. Their reduced participation in public life keeps them in the home, where they are increasingly vulnerable to violence at the hands of the men in their lives, many of whom are also struggling with the after-effects of wartime trauma. And the measures taken by the community, by the state, and by international actors to address their needs have only made the situation worse. Hasty marriage for protection, wellbeing schemes that entail isolation and exposure to state agents, and disempowering livelihoods programs have further undermined their economic and political position.
Caught in a cycle of poverty and abuse, women find that “the role of the victimized is the only place to draw benefits in a context of institutional bias, so they adopt this.” 74 Tamil women’s identities post-conflict have been absorbed into variations of victim, where labels of “widow”, “war-affected”, “young widow”, and “mothers of the disappeared” – each complete with their own forms of small-scale support, and each in their own ways denying Tamil women agency and homogenizing important differences between them. One activist notes, “They are not even seen as women anymore” 75
The women interviewed for this report were well aware of the dynamics contributing to their precarious position. They articulated clearly the ways in which fear of rape and harassment prevented them from participating fully in public life, in particularly many feared an identity permanently defined by their experience with sexual violence. And many expressed intense frustration with measures undertaken ostensibly for their protection that only served to further marginalize them. The livelihoods programs endorsed by the international community were a source of particular bafflement. “I have many talents that could be used, particularly with the computer, but the only machine I have is a sewing machine.” 76
The effects of this failure to address the situation of Tamil women have been dire. Female school attendance is down, while activists and scholars working in the north point to an identifiable “feminization of poverty”. Transactional sex is on the rise. Women are broadly vulnerable to exploitation by state forces and by members of their own community. Cut off from the means to support themselves, some borrow money only to discover too late that their lender is a pimp.77
Others seek out assistance from politicians, the almost entirely male elected representatives of the Tamil community. In one particularly egregious case, a politician whom local women customarily petitioned for jobs for their daughters, or school admission for their sons, was recently alleged to have lured more than 50 women into coercive sex acts, many of which he filmed. And while the grievances described above are often carefully categorized under the banner of “women’s issues”, the stakes of ignoring them are overtly political. The predicament of Tamil women has been the greatest impetus for a society-wide nostalgia for the LTTE (rather than the lack of political power). “When people in the community think of the situation now of Tamil women, they think we have to resurrect the LTTE”,78 reports one activist, a sentiment echoed by several others. An excombatant, speaking honestly under condition of anonymity, explained: “My life was better as an excombatant, there was gender-equality there.”
Even non-combatant women report are being drawn to the political agenda espoused by TNA politician Ananthi, who explains that “Within the LTTE women had equal rights and trained and fought like men. I speak up because my husband gave me equal rights in the home. Now things have changed”. While this nostalgia invokes a “romanticized” vision79 of life under the LTTE, it has an increasingly powerful grasp on the political imagination of the Tamil population.
Voices from within the community have been highlighting these issues for some time now. At the individual level, many women profess a strong desire to attain some level of independence. This is particularly true among ex-combatants, one of whom notes, “I have to restrict myself now, all the time. I want to feel free. Back then I felt happiness”80. And activists working at a collective level are fighting to expand the limited space available for women to engage politically. Operating slowly, and quietly, are staunch feminists working with small groups of women to educate and mobilize them about the multiple forms of repression that should be countered with context-specific, somewhat radical, feminism. Even groups under more enlightened male leaderships have begun to host seminars and conversations with the support of local Tamil psychiatrists to address the rise in “anti-social” behaviors within the community.
It is critical that these efforts be supported. Those intervening in the post-war context must ask themselves: “What do we know about the kind of life Tamil women want to lead?” 81 Not every woman is a rape victim, and not every woman wants a sewing machine. But all women will benefit from expanded space for economic and political agency. An increase in the number of Tamil-speaking police women or the strategic commitment of Tamil political parties to engage Tamil women (rather than politicizing their stories) may be a starting point towards real change. However, without listening to Tamil women’s lived experiences, understanding how these experiences shape their political perspectives, and providing real space for their political engagement — efforts to improve