ECONOMYNEXT – Greater than 16 years after Sri Lanka’s civil warfare, survivors of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) proceed to face systemic denial of justice, reparations, and acknowledgment, a United Nations Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report mentioned.
The report titled “We Misplaced All the things – Even Hope for Justice” and printed on Tuesdays (13) attracts on over a decade of UN monitoring, prior investigations, and direct consultations with survivors to doc how sexual violence was used as a deliberate, widespread, and institutionally enabled device throughout and after the 26-year warfare between the state armed forces and Tamil Tiger rebels popularly referred to as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The content material of the report emphasizes that these acts, disproportionately concentrating on Tamil communities, included rape, gang rape, sexual torture, compelled nudity, genital mutilation, and sexual humiliation.
Perpetrators have been primarily State safety forces, together with the military, navy, air drive, Felony Investigation Division (CID), Terrorism Investigation Division (TID), and affiliated paramilitary teams, who employed violence to extract info, assert dominance, intimidate populations, and instill pervasive worry.
“Regardless of it being a longstanding matter of report, successive Sri Lankan governments have did not adequately examine or prosecute circumstances of battle associated sexual violence (CRSV), typically minimizing or denying the extent of the violations,” the report mentioned.
“Whereas worldwide actors have expressed concern, significant steps towards facilitating credible accountability and entry to justice for survivors have remained restricted.”
“The present Authorities has pledged a renewed give attention to home accountability and justice reform, together with commitments to handle some emblematic circumstances and restore the rule of legislation. Nevertheless, regardless of these commitments, entrenched impunity for critical violations, together with CRSV, persists and tangible progress stays to be seen.”
Consequently, survivors proceed to be largely denied justice, and the systemic and institutional situations that enabled such violations stay largely unaddressed.”
The report adopts a survivor-centered methodology, adhering to “do no hurt” ideas with confidentiality and knowledgeable consent.
As a result of restricted entry to Sri Lanka, OHCHR performed distant semi-structured interviews and focus teams with 27 survivors (23 ladies and 4 males, aged 26–86), protecting incidents from 1985 to as lately as 2024.
Consultations additionally included civil society consultants, authorized professionals, and lecturers, the report mentioned.
Survivors’ testimonies paint a harrowing image of tolerating trauma. One lady described the acts as “a torture that by no means stops,” whereas one other lamented: “We misplaced all the pieces, our husbands, youngsters, and dignity. Nobody can provide that again. All we’ve got is that this struggling.”
A male survivor mirrored on survival amid brutality: “I used to be completely satisfied to be alive and that was sufficient.”
Many victims have emphasised community-wide hurt, with one stating: “Such violent acts have been carried out to take out the dignity of the Tamil neighborhood. These are crimes in opposition to the neighborhood.”
The report highlights how impunity has perpetuated a continuum of gender-based violence (GBV), with post-conflict militarization within the North and East, emergency legal guidelines just like the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), and weakened rule of legislation enabling ongoing violations.
Stigma silences survivors together with ladies face ostracism, marital rejection, and financial hardship; males endure emasculation and untreated accidents, whereas youngsters of survivors, together with these born of rape, endure discrimination.
It mentioned home authorized gaps exacerbate the disaster whereas prosecutions stay uncommon even in emblematic incidents just like the 2011 Vishvamadu gang rape case which noticed preliminary convictions overturned on enchantment.
Reparations are just about nonexistent, with no complete applications or official acknowledgment, it mentioned.
The report references President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s November 21, 2024, inaugural handle, the place he pledged to research “controversial crimes,” ship justice to victims, and restore belief within the rule of legislation.
But, almost 15 months later, “tangible progress stays to be seen,” with structural situations enabling impunity unchanged, it mentioned.
The report has listed suggestions and urged the Sri Lankan authorities to publicly acknowledge previous CRSV by state forces and difficulty a proper apology in addition to to conduct impartial, survivor-centered investigations, together with command duty.
It additionally has steered to reform legal guidelines together with adopting consent-based rape definitions and repealing PTA provisions enabling arbitrary detention whereas offering holistic reparations, psychosocial help, and focused schemes for male survivors and affected households.
It has additionally urged the federal government to reinforce safety sector vetting, oversight, and human rights coaching in addition to take away warfare monuments from civilian areas as an emblem of acknowledgement.
Internationally, the report requires common jurisdiction prosecutions, focused sanctions on perpetrators, screening of Sri Lankan personnel in UN peacekeeping, and sustained help for OHCHR proof preservation beneath Human Rights Council resolutions.
Human rights teams have echoed the urgency.
Amnesty Worldwide’s South Asia Director Smriti Singh described the report as “a clarion name” for accountability, noting it reaffirms that sexual violence in opposition to Tamils was “deliberate, widespread, and systemic.”
As Sri Lanka navigates financial restoration and political transitions, the OHCHR report warns that with out real political will to confront this legacy, cycles of trauma, marginalization, and violence will persist, eroding prospects for lasting reconciliation and therapeutic. (Colombo/January 14/2026)
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