Stop-Torture-Report

“There were reports that authorities released detainees with a warning not to
reveal information about their arrest or detention, under the threat of re-arrest
or death. 66 ”
The very few survivors who have spoken out about post-war rape in public
abroad have had to endure extraordinary retribution. “Nandini” (not her real
name) who courageously spoke on BBC TV 67 in 2013 about being abducted in a
white van, tortured and raped has been repeatedly and publicly vilified by the
Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence website which accused her and everyone
connected with her case of lying 68 . “Nandini’s” account, which was backed up
by independent expert medical evidence, of brutal abuse at the hands of the Sri
Lankan security forces has however been accepted by the UK Home Office
which granted her asylum. Indeed, the UK Home Office or UK courts have
either accepted the evidence of the over 100 witnesses who have given ITJP
sworn statements and granted them asylum, or their cases are still pending.
The UK and other Courts have not rejected and deported a single witness that
we have relied upon in this report.
Shamed
The perpetrators are well aware that the particular stigma in Tamil society of
being a sexual violence survivor helps to deter witnesses from ever speaking of
what happened. A young woman who was one of many gang raped by soldiers
in a bunker in May 2009 while bound, blindfolded and gagged, tried to tell her
mother what had happened. Her mother responded by trying to change her
daughter’s torn clothes to hide the crime so as to avoid the stigma and shame
that would follow from the rape becoming known. “Nothing happened here,”
she told her daughter and silenced her. Sadly even amongst the victims, the
victims of rape and sexual violence continue to bear the shame.
An aid worker from Sri Lanka described the typical attitude in the island:
66 Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2014, accessed at
http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/humanrightsreport/index.htm?year=2014&dlid=236650#wrapper
67 Tamils still being raped and tortured in Sri Lanka, 9 November 2013, BBC Online, Accessed on 21 April 2015 at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24849699
68 Torture 'Clinics' in UK as Pathway to Asylum? Exposure of Nandani's Act in BBC Documentary hosted by Frances Harrison in 2013, 11
January 2014, MOD wesbite, Accessed on 21 April 2015 at
http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=Torture_Clinics_in_UK_as_Pathway_to_Asylum_20141014_01
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