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Women in the north, the forgotten victims of the civil war

by Melani Manel Perera
Human rights activists report that women are worse off in the north, where the civil war continues unabated, compared to their sisters in the south. Increasingly, northern women are suffering from depression as the social, economic and political crisis deepens. Few still retain hope for the future. Since 1983 20,000 women have been widowed.

Colombo (AsiaNews) – Women living in the Jaffna Peninsula, in northern Sri Lanka, are crying out for help. Forgotten victims of a civil war that is devastating the country’s northern and eastern regions, they want the same opportunities that women enjoy in the south. The Women's desk of the National Fisheries Solidarity (NAFSO) made the demand during the launch in Colombo of Gender, Social values and Women for Wellbeing of the Society, a book that looks at the real life situation of Sri Lankan women.

Unlike their southern counterparts, women in the north and the east are going through a profound social, economic and political crisis.

For Said Geetha Lamini, administrative secretary of NAFSO’s, girls ranging in age from 9 to 16 do not go to school for fear of abduction. In the last month alone four girls have in fact disappeared.

But that is not all. Indeed the cost of living is very high.

“The prices of essential food items are too high. It affects directly to the family life. It is women who, in the family, must deal with the crisis, with prices like US$ 1.41 for a kilo of rice, US$ 1 for kilo of sugar,” she told AsiaNews.

Humanitarian workers in Jaffna Peninsula have seen how economic problems and war–related insecurity cause depression in many northern women, often widows with little hope for the future.

According to the latest figures, more than 100,000 people have become internally displaced since 2006, and more than 800 people have disappeared.

Altogether some 20,000 women have lost their husbands since 1983.