Sexual violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka has occurred repeatedly during the country's long ethnic conflict.
The first instances of rape of Tamil women by Sinhalese mobs were documented during the 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom.
[1] 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.
[3][4][5] Following the outbreak of Sri Lankan civil war, rape was used by the Sinhalese-dominated[6] Sri Lankan armed forces, in an attempt to collectively punish the Tamil population, who were often seen as being supportive of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
[11][12][13] Other groups which committed rape against Tamils included the Indian Peace Keeping Force and Sri Lankan Police.
[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.
[note 5][23][24] Sexual slavery and mass rape of Tamils by Sri Lankan 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 "widespread and systematic".
[note 6][26] The government forces consistently deny all the charges of mass rape, with one senior Army official stating 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.
Sinhalese journalist Tarzie Vittachi recounts the frequent use of rape by these mobs in his book "Emergency '58", where he describes a "Sinhala Hamudawa (army)" composed of Sinhalese laborers from various state departments and farms going on the rampage, raping, looting and beating up hundreds of Tamils.
One account of rape recounted by Vittachi describes a Tamil officer who became mentally unstable as a result of being unable to defend his wife and daughter from the sexual assault:[1] "Another Tamil officer working in the same Government department was not so fortunate.
The thugs stormed into his house and assaulted his wife and grown-up daughter in the presence of his little child.
"Following the 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom, the Ceylon government sent the military to the north under emergency rule, which enabled them to "operate brutally with impunity".
[29] His wife Mangayarkarasi Amirthalingam emotionally recounted some incidents of rape that occurred during the 1977 pogrom and said "Tamil women could not walk the streets during nights in safety.
[4] In the London Observer of 20 September 1981, Brian Eads reported that "25 people died, scores of women were gang raped, and thousands were made homeless, losing all their meagre belongings".
[4] Black July 1983 was the largest pogrom orchestrated by the Sri Lankan government against the Tamils.
Prior to the pogrom during the week of 18 July 1983, three Tamil schoolgirls were raped by Sinhalese soldiers in Jaffna, following which one of victims committed suicide.
[31] The following accounts of rape occurred during the pogrom: Full-scale war broke out between the Sri Lankan Army and Tamil militant groups after Black July 1983.
The Sri Lankan armed forces resorted to punitive mass rape of thousands of Tamil women in the North-East during the civil war.
[35] "Our Tamil armed group brothers of freedom fighters who helped the army watched us being sexually assaulted; but some I saw had tears in their eyes as their hands are tied.
"[196]About 300,000 Tamil civilians displaced in the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War were detained by the Sri Lankan security forces in several camps in Vavuniya District, known by the generic name "Manik Farm", which was then the largest refugee camp in the world.
The camps were known for their poor conditions and incidents of sexual violence by the Sri Lankan security forces.
"[225]"The Channel 4 video and photographs of what appear to be dead female cadre, including video footage in which the naked bodies of women are deliberately exposed, accompanied by lurid comments by SLA soldiers, raising a strong inference that rape or sexual violence may have occurred prior to or after execution.
It was quite open, everyone could see the military officers touching the girls,"[232]"They beat me, pulled my hair, and banged my head on a wall.
"[243]"In front of our own eyes, and inside our premises, the army was touching a young girl…so what would happen if we are also not there"[244]"During the first interrogation, the official in military fatigues forced me to undress.
Reports also indicate that when such complaints of harassment and molestation are made the complainants are often threatened and sometimes abused by the military personnel concerned.
There are also reports of complaints to the police being generally met with inaction when the alleged perpetrators are either security forces or labourers or workmen from the South.
She was taken by a guard at night to a 'questioning room' where several male uniformed officers were waiting, faces partially obscured.
"[297]"...With his hands tied a two inch nail was forced into his urethra and rotated causing pain, some bleeding and discomfort on passing urine for many days.
Political rhetoric about Sri Lanka being a different place, and EU trade relations being re-established due to improvements in the human rights situation, is not consistent with what we're seeing.
"[300]"In detention they experienced brutal torture at the hands of the security forces, such as whipping of the soles of the feet, blows to sexual organs, cigarette burns, branding with a heated metal rod, water torture, asphyxiation, suspension in stress positions, mock executions and death threats, as well as rape, including gang rape.