WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY:
SRI LANKA

UNIFEM WOMEN, WAR AND PEACE WEB PORTAL: SRI LANKA

"The work of women activists around the world on various aspects of violence against women in the family and in the community, as well as in society at large has shown the continuum of violence in patriarchal and hierarchical societies, linking violence in the home with violence in society. This focus has highlighted the ways in which the use of violence as a dispute-resolving mechanism -- in both the private and public arenas -- breeds intolerance and prejudice at every level in society. The analysis of violence against women as a flagrant violation of their human rights and of their right to dignity and equality has encompassed consideration of the impact of poverty, and of processes of economic and social development, from the perspective of human rights. In addition, women activists have linked issues of peace with issues of militarization. This involves not only looking at the 'normalization' of war and of military life styles and ideals in society in terms of its impact on women, but also questioning the economic aspects of war and links to the growing military-industrial complex worldwide in terms of its impact on all marginalized communities."

Sunila Abeyesekera, Inform, a Sri Lankan human rights organisation, February 2003

"For 15 years, I have experienced war while living in Sri Lanka. Sometimes I was afraid, but since I lived in the south of the country, I didn’t live the war day in and day out as some did. We noticed the war when there was a suicide bombing. My husbands company was devastated when a car bomb exploded outside his office building in 1991. When the Central Bank was bombed in 1996, my husband's office building was damaged again because it was located across from the bank in the key business district of Colombo. There were people in his building who died and people from his office who were badly injured. Luckily, he was not there. Of all the events that brought the war into our lives, the one on July 24, 2001 was the turning point. Sri Lanka's international airport was attached early in the morning. Our national carrier lost half its fleet, which had been parked on the ground for the night. Because the airforce shares a runway with the commercial airport. 8 of their 11 aircraft on the ground were destroyed as well. […] I recognized the huge economic impact the attack was going to have on our country. We had become a high risk nation. […]This was dire situation […] so I volunteered to do damage control with a group of people directly affected by the fallout. […] I came to the realization that patchwork wasn’t enough. […] The only way to stop terrorism was to stop the war and the only way to stop the war was to get back to the negotiating table."

Neela Marikkar. Managing Director of McCann-Erickson