WUNRN
SRI LANKA-FORMER FEMALE SOLDIERS
FIND BARRIERS TO REINTEGRATION
Photo: Contributor/IRIN
Widow of a former Tamil Tiger rebel fighter who is also a former combatant
KILINOCHCHI, 23 February 2011 (IRIN) - Former female combatants
in northern
"Former female child soldiers are just not being perceived positively by
society," said Thaya Thiagarajah, a senior official with the Jaffna
Diocese of the
Marriage prospects for female former rebels who fought with the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are bleak, said Selvanayagam Selvantha, a local
aid worker with the same church, located in the former conflict zone.
"Tamil society is very traditional. Parents do not want their sons to
marry women ex-fighters," he added, noting how important marriage is to
being accepted in the community.
Stigma will be the biggest hurdle in reintegrating female fighters, said
women's rights activist Sunila Abeysekara, based in
"Women cadres are seen as women who [value] marriage [less because they]
took up arms," she added. As a result, most female ex-combatants are
"struggling to find normalcy" due to the weight of such judgment and
suspicion.
She estimated there were about 3,000 female former rebels, but could not say
how many were single.
"LTTE [was] a violent organization; many in society had suffered because
of LTTE. Now LTTE is not there, society is free to express themselves against
people who have been linked with LTTE. This problem is common for both men and
women [ex-fighters]," Abeysekara said.
But it is women who are criticized most harshly, she noted.
Tamil Tiger separatist rebels waged a decades-long war - declared over in May
2009 - that displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians in northern
Female ex-combatants face social stonewalling even at the earliest stages of
their return to civilian life, according to Clive Jackniek, a disarmament,
demobilization and reintegration senior programme manager with the
International Organization for Migration.
"The biggest challenge I faced after returning home was the lack of
employment, educational and future options to live a good life," said Jeya
Kamalrajan, 18, who fought with the Tamil Tigers from 2007 to 2009.
"People do not want to hire me because they see me as a bad woman who
joined the Tigers... I do not have a lot of plans - I want to live a decent
life forgetting everything that happened in my past," she said.
Nalini*, 19, from Mullaitivu District, told IRIN she feared the Tamil Tiger
"label" would be "stuck" with her for ever.
"I really want to move on - but I am not sure how to in this cultural
setting because people distrust me for something I am not."
___________________________
*Not her real name