Displaced Women Rebuild Their Lives
By Aurora Vincent
Women's Feature Service
The island state of Sri Lanka has one of the highest numbers of internally displaced people in the world. Women and children comprise around 75 per cent of those forced to leave their homes during periods of increased civil strife. In such a scenario, women have had to take on the unfamiliar role of head of the household. In order to help these women, several NGOs are providing community-based, psycho-social rehabilitation.
Colombo (Sri Lanka) -- The small island of Sri Lanka has one of the highest numbers of internally displaced people in the world. Since the military conflict began in 1983, people from the Tamil and Muslim ethnic minorities as well as the majority Sinhalese community, have been displaced from their homes primarily in the North and the Eastern provinces of the island.
An estimated 1.3 million Sri Lankans (out of a total population of around 19 million) are currently displaced within and outside the country. Of this, an estimated 800,000 people are displaced internally, while another 500,000 are estimated to be living as refugees in India, Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Almost all the displaced people have left their homes, or been forced to leave, during periods of increased military activity between Sri Lankan government troops and the terrorist organisation, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
For those who remain in Sri Lanka as displaced persons, life cannot get any worse. The approximately 348 government-run welfare centres currently provide shelter and daily rations to 176,000 persons -- 24 per cent of the total displaced population. Over 500,000 people remain displaced, and have opted to live with their extended families or friends.
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It is not surprising that the majority opt to live outside the Welfare Centres. The overcrowded facilities, communal living and poor sanitation have bred disease and made life in some Welfare Centres a living hell. Temporary shelters are formed in schools, churches, community halls, paddy marketing stores and bus depots.
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According to UNHCR and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working with displaced people, women and children comprise around 75 per cent of the displaced population in Sri Lanka.
" When our village came under mortar fire and some of our homes were destroyed we had little choice but to leave. One night, when the fighting came within an arm's distance of our house, we had to grab what we could and run into the jungles," says Sarasvathi Mailvaganam. Members of her fishing village are now scattered all over the Vavuniya district in Northern Sri Lanka. Two weeks after they arrived at a temporary shelter run by the Methodist Church in July 1994, her husband Ramachandran returned to their village to bring back more of their belongings. He never returned.
Sarasvathi is now a single parent to her three young daughters, and this prematurely grey, 36-year-old sees her life as being cursed by all the gods. Unable to leave her youngest ten-year-old daughter, who contracted polio after less than six months at the camp, she is totally dependent on the daily handouts of dried goods and the occasional bag of foodstuff from NGOs.
The female headed household, now seen increasingly in Sri Lanka, is most harshly highlighted within the Welfare Centres. "The male-headed household in Sri Lanka is the norm, and it was not culturally accepted for the household to be female-headed, " says Selvy Thiruchandaran, Executive Director of the Women's Education and Research Centre (WERC).
" And suddenly when women are thrust into this role, they are unprepared and unable to cope, " adds Thiruchandaran. While many take up ad hoc jobs, they have no skills and no experience and are often not employed in stable jobs with reasonable remuneration. Most end up being daily-wage manual labourers in the area.
In addition to providing for their families, women often also go in search of missing boys or husbands. This again is a task for which they are woefully unprepared. Raised in a patriarchal society, which frowns upon women becoming involved in issues outside the immediate family, Sarasvathi for instance didn't know where to find help in locating her husband. She had no previous experience of dealing with public officials and had never filled an information form, although she is literate and has studied up to the Grade 10. Almost three months after Ramachandran's disappearance, she was assisted by members from a local NGO in filing an official entry at the Welfare Centre. The NGO took up the search, but nearly seven years after Ramachandran's disappearance, he is still listed as one of the civilians who have " disappeared, presumed
dead ".
There are other problems too which women like Sarasvathi have to contend with. As a woman who has lost her husband, Sarasvathi is perceived as being unlucky and a bad omen and is kept away from all auspicious ceremonies of the community. She avoids attending events like a house warming, weddings, age-attaining ceremonies and even birthday parties. "At a time when social interaction is minimal due to the double and triple burden that these women take upon themselves, the experience of seclusion has led to further deprivations, causing psychological problems," says Thiruchandran.
This social seclusion is made worse by the loss of immediate family support, which has been the traditional support system for both the Sinhala and Tamil communities in Sri Lanka. "Our traditional method of coping with grief and loss - through the support of the extended family has disintegrated," says Shanthi Arulampalam of Survivors Associated, an NGO providing community-based, psycho-social rehabilitation for women affected by the conflict.
At another level, the
re-settlement of
displaced people is
being carried out in an
ad hoc manner, with people from various villages being settled
as one community in a new village. Extended families are separated,
as most often household heads draw lots to
decide on where they
are re-settled.
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"When our village came under mortar fire and some of our homes were destroyed we had little choice but to leave. One night, when the fighting came within an arm's distance of our house, we had to grab what we could and run into the jungles."
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However, all is not doom and gloom. Since 1992, the government has been engaged in resettling internally displaced persons and refugees who left the country in areas which are not in the frontlines and are considered safe. Under its rehabilitation scheme, now under the purview of the Resettlement and Rehabilitation Authority of the North and East, model villages have been set up, where "basic facilities such as electricity, water, roads, school buildings, community centres, post office and places of worship are made available". The government allocates a small piece of land to each household, and a cash grant of Rs 25,000 (1 USD = SR Rs 80) for the construction of a permanent house and Rs 7,000 for a temporary hut is also usually given.
Sarasvathi too hopes to be re-settled soon. She applied for resettlement late last year, after seven years at the Welfare Centre. Her main reason for remaining at the Centre was that if her husband came back, he would know where to find them. However, though she won't readily admit it, it appears that she has adjusted to the possibility that he may never return.
Another glimmer of hope for women in Welfare Centres is that organisations like Survivors Associated are working with them, drawing them out of their isolation and helping them to integrate into a society which has become more tolerant to the growing phenomenon of single women and female-headed households. They are taught vocational skills, encouraged to join support groups and are given an opportunity to share their trauma with other widows and single women.
Sarasvathi's future, and especially that of her children, may not be as violent and dark as their past. As Shanthi Arulumpalam states, "I do see things improving for the women. A lot of NGOs like us are committed to building awareness among the communities that a widow or a woman is not second class. We have several women who have taken to social work themselves, after being rehabilitated, and they are now more or less community leaders - which is something you couldn't have even dreamt of 10 years ago. But now people are beginning to listen to them. In rural communities today, women are in the majority, they have to cope, they have to take leadership."
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