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ABSTRACT
Reparative measures for conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) attend to the practical needs of victims while also addressing the long-term structural conditions that led to the violence and often endure after conflict. Over the last decade, transitional justice has sought to address high levels of impunity for SGBV, while also addressing the long-term structural conditions causing and exacerbating it. In this article we study the case of Sri Lanka, where crimes have been committed during and after the civil war (1983–2009) but a transitional justice mechanism to redress them is unlikely to be established. The article considers whether in such a situation of impunity gender-sensitive approaches to SGBV prevention can still be promoted to ensure its non-recurrence. We closely examine post-conflict Sri Lanka and women’s ongoing experiences of multiple forms of insecurity and violence to highlight the relationship between enduring structural gender inequalities and reparative justice. Bridging human rights and political economy approaches, we argue that addressing gender inequalities in access to resources and public space is essential to prevent further gender-based violence and structural harms in conflict-affected countries like Sri Lanka.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Sara E. Davies is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow and Associate Professor at the Centre for Governance and Public Policy and Griffith Asia Institute, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Australia. She is also adjunct associate professor at Monash University’s Gender, Peace and Security Centre (Monash GPS). Sara’s research is focused on global health diplomacy and the patterns of systematic sexual and gender-based violence in Asia-Pacific conflict-affected countries. Sara is co-editor with Jacqui True of the Oxford Handbook on Women, Peace and Security (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
Jacqui True is a Professor and the Director of Monash University’s Centre for Gender, Peace and Security (Monash GPS) in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University, Australia. She is also an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow and a Global Fellow, Peace Research Institute (PRIO), Oslo. Her current research is focused on understanding the political economy of post-conflict violence against women, and the patterns of systematic sexual and gender-based violence in Asia-Pacific conflict-affected countries. She is co-editor with Sara Davies of the Oxford Handbook on Women, Peace and Security (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
Notes
1 Andrea Durbach and Louise Chappell, ‘“Leaving Behind the Age of Impunity”: Victims of Gender Violence and the Promise of Reparations’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 16, no. 4 (2014): 543–62.
2 Three main investigations by the United Nations (UN) have identified both the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) as responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the final stages of the war; and the government of Sri Lanka for committing ongoing human rights violations in the aftermath of the war and failing to create a transparent and accountable transitional and reconciliatory justice process. Marzuki Darusman, Steven Ratner, and Yasmin Sooka, Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka (New York: United Nations, 31 March 2011); Charles Petrie, Report of the Secretary-General’s Internal Review Panel on United Nations Action in Sri Lanka (New York: United Nations, November 2012); OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL), Report of the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka, A/HRC/30/CRP (Geneva: United Nations, 16 September 2015).
3 Darusman, Ratner, and Sooka, Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts, 43.
4 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 117.
5 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 221–2; International Truth and Justice Project (IJTP), A Still Unfinished War: Sri Lanka’s Survivors of Torture and Sexual Violence 2009–2015 (Johannesburg: Foundation for Human Rights South Africa, 2015), 5–6.
6 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 223, 229.
7 UN Secretary-General, Report on Conflict-related Sexual Violence, S/2013/149, 14 March 2013, 22.
8 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 126; UN Secretary-General, Report on Conflict-related Sexual Violence, S/2016/361, 22 June 2016, 26.
9 S/2016/361, para. 13.
10 Anuradha Mittal and Elizabeth Fraser, Waiting to Return Home: Continued Plight of the IDPs in Post-War Sri Lanka (Oakland: Oakland Institute, 2016).
11 FOKUS Women, Shadow Report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. 66th Session February–March 2017 8th Periodic Review of Sri Lanka (Colombo: FOKUS Women, 2016), 12; Centre for Policy Alternatives, Accountability and Reparations for Victims of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Sri Lanka (Colombo: CPA, 2016); ITJP, Still Unfinished War, 5–6.
12 Nihal Jayawickrama, ‘The Hybrid Court’, Colombo Telegraph, 26 September 2015, https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/the-hybrid-court/ (accessed 12 July 2017).
13 UNFPA, Protecting Women’s Rights (Colombo: United Nations, 2016), 6–7.
14 FOKUS Women, Shadow Report, 66th Session, 12; UNFPA, Bringing Generations Together for Our Sri Lanka (Colombo: United Nations, 2016), 8.
15 ITJP, Still Unfinished War, 15–18, 25–6; OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 112, 127; CPA, Accountability and Reparations, 7–8.
16 FOKUS Women, Post War Trends in Child Marriage – Sri Lanka (Colombo: FOKUS Women, 2015), 21–2; UNFPA, Extent, Trends and Determinants of Teenage Pregnancies in Three Districts of Sri Lanka (Colombo: United Nations, 2012), 11.
17 Emma Fulu et al., Why Do Some Men Use Violence Against Women and How Can We Prevent It? Quantitative Findings from the United Nations Multi-Country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific (Bangkok: UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UNV, 2013), 45, 53, http://www.partners4prevention.org/sites/default/files/resources/p4p-report.pdf (accessed 12 July 2017).
18 Maithree Wickramasinghe and Chulani Kodikara, ‘Representation in Politics: Women and Gender in the Sri Lankan Republic’, in The Sri Lankan Republic at 40: Reflections on Constitutional History, Theory and Practice, ed. Asanga Welikala (Colombo: Centre for Policy Alternatives and Friedrich Naumann Stiftung für die Freiheit (FNF), 2012), 783.
19 The use of the term ‘gender-based violence’ is in contrast to other post-conflict states where sexual violence is major part of public and international discourse (sometimes leading to other everyday forms of violence such as domestic violence being overlooked). See UNFPA, Keeping the Promise to Women (Colombo: UNFPA, 2016).
20 FOKUS Women, Whither Justice? The Language Barrier in Accessing The Criminal Justice System (Colombo: FOKUS Women, 2016); Sepali Guruge et al., ‘Intimate Partner Violence in the Post-war Context: Women’s Experiences and Community Leaders’ Perceptions in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka’, PLoS ONE 12, no. 3 (2017): e0174801, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174801 (accessed 12 July 2017).
21 Chandrani Bandara, ‘Women in Post War Reconciliation “The Road to Reconciliation: Justice, Hope and Dignity in Sri Lanka”’, Statement by Minister of Women and Child Affairs (New York, 17 March 2016).
22 CPA, Accountability and Reparations.
23 Chulani Kodikara, ‘Justice and Accountability for War Related Sexual Violence in Sri Lanka’, Open Democracy, 15 August 2016, https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/chulani-kodikara/justice-and-accountability-for-war-related-sexual-violence-in-sri-lanka (accessed 12 July 2017); Ram Manikkalingam, ‘Politics of Punishing War Crimes in Sri Lanka’, Open Democracy, 8 February 2016, https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/ram-manikkalingam/politics-of-punishing-war-crimes-in-sri-lanka (accessed 12 July 2017).
24 Ambika Satkunanathan, ‘“What Is Represented and What Is Made Invisible”: Women and Transitional Justice Processes in Sri Lanka’, Groundviews, 3 June 2015, http://groundviews.org/2015/06/03/what-is-represented-and-what-is-made-invisible-women-and-transitional-justice-processes-in-sri-lanka/ (accessed 12 July 2017).
25 See Ruth Rubio-Marin ed., What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations (New York: Social Science Research Council, 2006); Suzanne Buckley-Zistel and Ruth Stanley, eds., Gender and Transitional Justice (London: Palgrave, 2012).
26 Uppsala Conflict Data Program, Sri Lanka, http://ucdp.uu.se/ (accessed 1 August 2016).
27 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 219.
28 Malatha de Alwis, ‘The “Purity” of Displacement and the Reterritorialization of Longing: Muslim IDPs in Northwestern Sri Lanka’, in Sites of Violence: Gender and Conflict Zones, ed. Wenona Giles and Jennifer Hyndman (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 217.
29 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 12.
30 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 12–15.
31 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 13; Mark Salter, To End a Civil War: Norway’s Peace Engagement in Sri Lanka (London: Hurst, 2015), chap. 1.
32 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 2015, 219.
33 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 18.
34 For the definition of widespread and systematic sexual and gender-based crimes see Office of the ICC Prosecutor, Policy Paper on Sexual and Gender-based Crimes (The Hague: ICC, June 2014), 5. These crimes may occur in conflict or not. The OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka found SGBV was widespread, and violations by the Sri Lanka government security forces may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 223.
35 See International Truth and Justice Project, A Still Unfinished War, 78, 80; OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 117–28; Human Rights Watch, We Will Teach You a Lesson: Sexual Violence against Tamils by Sri Lankan Security Forces, 26 February 2013; ITJP, Still Unfinished War, 15–18, 25–26.
36 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 128–9.
37 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 19.
38 It remains unknown how many combatants and people suspected of having links to LTTE were detained in 2008 and 2009. It is known that there were summary executions and acts of torture and rape committed against detainees. Darusman, Ratner, and Sooka, Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts, iii; OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 2015, 21.
39 Human Rights Watch, We Will Teach You a Lesson, 4.
40 Human Rights Watch, We Will Teach You a Lesson, 7.
41 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 124–6.
42 Petrie, Report of the Secretary-General’s Internal Review Panel, 46. High Commissioner Pillay found little support within the Human Rights Council to adopt a resolution that forced the Sri Lanka government to adopt a national peace and reconciliation accord in 2009. The Human Rights Council adopted resolution S/11-1 27 on 27 May 2009 congratulating the Sri Lankan government for its victory.
43 Petrie, Report of the Secretary-General’s Internal Review Panel, 89.
44 Human Rights Watch, UN: Act on Failings in Sri Lanka, 14 November 2012, https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/11/14/un-act-failings-sri-lanka (accessed 12 July 2017).
45 Darusman, Ratner, and Sooka, Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts, 44, 47, 50.
46 Darusman, Sooka, and Ratner, Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts, v.
47 Darusman, Ratner, and Sooka, Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts, 17; Human Rights Watch, Breaking the Silence, 6.
48 Human Rights Watch, We Will Teach You a Lesson, 2013.
49 Sooka, Unfinished War, 45; ITJP, Still Unfinished War, 6.
50 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 117–28.
51 Petrie, Report of the Secretary-General’s Internal Review Panel, 16.
52 ITJP, Still Unfinished War, 7.
53 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 223.
54 Some of these cases involved gang rape; the majority of victims were under the age of 18; and the majority of the victims were Sinhala, with 12 and two cases, respectively, involving Tamil and Muslim victims. The 58 alleged perpetrators of these 39 cases were: 32 from the Sri Lanka Army, 13 police, one from a police Special Task Force, one from the Sri Lanka Navy and 11 from the Civil Defence Force (OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 119, 126).
55 British Broadcasting Corporation, ‘Four Sri Lankan Soldiers Convicted of Raping Tamil Woman’, 7 October 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/34470053 (accessed 12 July 2017).
56 Asian Tribune, ‘Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election ‘Momentous’ – Foreign Minister Bogollagama’, 28 January 2010, http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2010/01/29/sri-lanka%E2%80%99s-presidential-election-%E2%80%98momentous%E2%80%99-%E2%80%93-foreign-minister-bogollagama (accessed 12 July 2017).
57 The Economist, ‘Last Days of the Raj?’, 3 January 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21637389-encouragingly-mahinda-rajapaksa-faces-real-battle-win-re-election-president-better (accessed 12 July 2017).
58 Premachandra Athukorala and Sisira Jayasuriya, ‘Victory in War and Defeat in Peace: Politics and Economics of Post-Conflict Sri Lanka’, Asian Economic Papers 14, no. 3 (2015): 22–54.
59 Transparency International, Sri Lanka National Integrity System Assessment 2014, http://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/sri_lanka_national_integrity_system_assessment_2014 (accessed 1 August 2016); Verite Research, Sri Lanka: LLRC Implementation Monitor, Statistical and Analytical Review No. 4 (Colombo: Verite Research, 2016).
60 See World Bank, The World Bank in Sri Lanka http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/srilanka (accessed 18 August 2017).
61 Ranil Wickremesinghe, Report Of The Leader Of The Opposition's Commission On The Prevention Of Violence Against Women And The Girl Child, December 2014, 7. http://www.childwomenmin.gov.lk/resources/30/REPORT.pdf.
62 Wickremesinghe, Report of The Leader of The Opposition, 39.
63 International Crisis Group, The Forever War?, 25 March 2014, http://blog.crisisgroup.org/asia/2014/03/25/the-forever-war-military-control-in-sri-lankas-north/ (accessed 12 July 2017); Verite Research, Sri Lanka, 14.
64 Wickremesinghe, Report of The Leader of The Opposition, 36.
65 Consultation Taskforce, Interim Report, 14.
66 International Crisis Group, Forever War?, 25 March 2014.
67 Verite, Sri Lanka, 7.
68 Ministry of Defence, Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation (Colombo: Sri Lanka Government, 2011), para. 9.86, 9.87.
69 International Crisis Group, ‘Sri Lanka: Women’s Insecurity in the North and East’, Report 217 (Asia) (Brussels/Colombo: ICG, 2011), https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka/sri-lanka-women-s-insecurity-north-and-east (accessed 12 July 2017); FOKUS Women, Shadow Report, 15–18.
70 A higher presence of FHH in the Northern and Eastern provinces is likely attributable to the war because the proportion of FHH categorised as separated/divorced/widowed is around 80% in those provinces (with few married or never married female heads compared with other provinces). The Department of Census and Statistics, 2012–13 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (Colombo); UNFPA, Protecting Women’s Rights, 4.
71 FOKUS Women, Whither Justice?
72 Ranil Wickremesinghe, Report of The Leader of The Opposition’s Commission On The Prevention of Violence Against Women And The Girl Child (December 2014), 7, http://www.childwomenmin.gov.lk/resources/30/REPORT.pdf (accessed 12 July 2017).
73 Sepali Guruge et al., ‘Intimate Partner Violence’.
74 FOKUS Women, A Report on the Status of Female Heads of Households and their Access to Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 2015 (Colombo: FOKUS Women, 2015).
75 Ministry of Defence, Report of the Commission of Inquiry, para. 5.103, citing a report dated 21 September 2011 received from the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Affairs; see also FOKUS Women, Shadow Report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, 112th Session (Colombo: FOKUS Women, 7–31 October, 2014), 4.
76 Consultation Taskforce, Interim Report, 36, 16.
77 CEPA, ‘“Samurdhi Unpacked: Selecting Beneficiaries.” Development Dialogue’, Financial Review, 18 May 2016.
78 Consultation Taskforce, Interim Report, 16.
79 Department of Census and Statistics, Annual Labour Force Survey 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014, Colombo, http://www.statistics.gov.lk/page.asp?page=Labour%20Force (accessed 12 July 2017).
80 Muttukrishna Saravanathan, The Pains of Labour: In the Post-Civil War Development in the City of Jaffna, Northern Province, Sri Lanka, 2016. Report prepared for the Solidarity Center in Sri Lanka (Colombo: Point Pedro Institute of Development, 2016), 6.
81 Center for Poverty Analysis (CEPA), ‘The Political Economy of Women’s Economic Relations in Post-war Sri Lanka’, SLRC Working Paper (Colombo: CEPA, 2016).
82 IRIN, ‘Fewer “I Do’s” for Former Female Rebels’, 23 February 2011, http://www.irinnews.org/report/92017/sri-lanka-fewer-i-dos-former-female-rebels (accessed 12 July 2017).
83 See Sri Lanka government rehabilitation programme for 12,000 ex-LTTE combatants report, http://www.bcgr.gov.lk/docs/Rehabilitation%20of%20Ex-Combatants%20(Compiler%20-%20Brigadier%20Dharshana%20Hettiarrachchi).pdf (accessed 12 July 2017).
84 Sri Lanka Government, ‘Programmes Implemented Related to Policy Matter 2015’, Ministry of Women and Child Affairs, http://www.childwomenmin.gov.lk/English/institutes/national-committee-on-women/policy (accessed 12 July 2017); Verite Research, The President’s Pledges to Women, A Review of the Promises and Progress Made in President Sirisena’s Pledge: ‘A New Sri Lanka for Women’ (Colombo: Verite Research, 2016).
85 Saravanathan, Pains of Labour, 29.
86 Sri Lanka Government, ‘National Committee on Women, Ministry of Women and Child Affairs’, http://www.childwomenmin.gov.lk/English/news/ministry-news/national-framework-andnationalactionplan (accessed 12 July 2017).
87 Verite Research, Sri Lanka: LLRC Implementation Monitor, Statistical and Analytical Review No. 4 (Colombo: Verite Research, 2016).
88 Verite, Sri Lanka, 15.
89 Sri Lanka Government, ‘National Committee on Women’.
90 Verite, President’s Pledges to Women, 19.
91 Ibid.
92 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 25.
93 OHCHR, A/HRC/30/CRP, 117.
94 Sri Lanka co-sponsored Resolution 30/1 at the 30th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council; Verite, Sri Lanka, 1.
95 Verite, Sri Lanka.
96 Sri Lanka Government, ‘Secretariat for Coordinating Reconciliation Mechanisms’, http://www.scrm.gov.lk/#!consultations/cjg9 (accessed 12 July 2017).
97 Consultation Taskforce, Interim Report.
98 Consultation Taskforce, Interim Report.
99 In May 2016, a bill on the establishment of an Office of Missing Persons was put forward in Parliament.
100 See Malin Jordal, Kumudu Wijewardena, and Pia Olsson, ‘Unmarried Women’s Ways of Facing Single Motherhood in Sri Lanka – A Qualitative Interview Study’, BMC Womens Health 13, no. 5 (2013): 1–12; Malathi de Alwis, ‘“Housewives of the Public”: The Cultural Signification of the Sri Lankan Nation’, in Crossing Borders and Shifting Boundaries: Vol. II: Gender Identities, ed. Ilse Lenz, Helma Lutz, Mirjana Morokvasic-Muller, Claudia Schöning-Kalender, and Helen Schwenken (Amsterdam: Springer, 2013), 21.
101 Saravanathan, Pains of Labour, 29.
102 Consultation Taskforce, Interim Report, 16.
103 Consultation Taskforce, Interim Report, 39.
104 Jacqui True, The Political Economy of Violence Against Women (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 77–94.
105 Alan Keenan, ‘Impunity and Justice: Why the UN Human Rights Council Must Stay Engaged in Sri Lanka’, Pursuit of Peace, International Crisis Group Blog (17 June 2016), http://blog.crisisgroup.org/asia/2016/06/17/impunity-and-justice-why-the-un-human-rights-council-must-stay-engaged-in-sri-lanka/ (accessed 12 July 2017).