This Sunday, May 18, marks 16 years since the Sri Lankan government defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), ending an armed conflict that had raged for 26 years. But while the fighting has long been over, the battle for justice for Tamil women victims continues.
Both sides in the conflict committed countless atrocities. Among the victims were female LTTE fighters and other Tamil women captured by government soldiers before being stripped, sexually mutilated, and killed in the conflict’s final weeks. The soldiers even took and kept photos and videos as war trophies. These included prominent images of the LTTE newspresenter Isaipriya, whose body was found having apparently been raped before she was killed.
This kind of state-perpetrated sexual violence against Tamils was not uncommon. During and following the war, security forces sexually tortured numerous Tamil detainees, both men and women.
Successive Sri Lankan governments have failed to hold security force members accountable for wartime sexual violence or for other serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances.
Nor has sexual violence against Tamil women been consigned to the history books. Ongoing militarization across the conflict-affected north and east has again put former LTTE female fighters at risk of sexual abuse and extortion. The wives and mothers of the disappeared, who have led yearslong continual protests for truth and international justice, have faced threats, violence, and sexual harassment.
Due to decades of impunity in Sri Lanka, Tamil victims and advocates have lost faith in the domestic justice system and started looking for justice elsewhere. The United Nations human rights chief has noted the importance of states “using all potential forms of jurisdiction,” including extraterritorial and universal jurisdiction, to investigate and prosecute international crimes committed in Sri Lanka to end “systematic impunity.”
One remaining vehicle is the UN human rights office’s “Sri Lanka Accountability Project,” which gathers evidence for potential prosecutions and other accountability processes. It is due for renewal by the UN Human Rights Council in September, which the Sri Lankan government should support. Its continuation is vital to ensure justice for Sri Lanka’s Tamil victims, including women like Isaipriya and the suffering wives and mothers of the disappeared.