By Shruthi De Visser
Almost four decades ago, a group of mothers gathered in protest of the unlawful capture of their sons by the Sri Lankan State. More than 500 Tamil youth had been forcibly captured in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka while widespread military presence spanned the province.
As sons were being dragged away to unknown places, perhaps never to be found or seen again, Tamil mothers in the North united in protest, demanding that their sons and husbands be released and the suffocating presence of the military done away with.
One can only imagine the fear, the anxiety and the palpable feeling of danger looming around these women. However, without accepting this as the status quo, doubling down and staying quiet, these women and their protests marked the first mothers protest of such proportions in Sri Lanka’s history. These Tamil women in the North set a precedent for dissent and protest by organising a march in 1984 which was the first of its kind in Sri Lanka.
Rich history of activism
Women’s protests in the North have been marked by a long and rich history of activism by Northern Tamil women, spanning four decades. Since 1984, the mothers and women of the Northern Province have had to grapple with the continued effects of the ethnic conflict and perhaps one of its most persisting tragedies; enforced disappearances. Throughout Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict, thousands of youth in the North disappeared, especially towards the end of the war as many began to surrender to the military.
Official estimates state that there are between 16,000 and 21,000 enforced disappearance cases in Sri Lanka (Consultation Task Force Report 2016). However, Amnesty International notes that there is a backlog of 60,000-100,000 cases of enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka; a jarring number. However, it has been a long drawn out and often lonesome fight for these women. Pockets of protests have persisted in the province to this day. However, the most notable among them is the Tamil mothers of the disappeared who marked 2,000 days of continued protests in August this year – again, a first in Sri Lanka’s history.
Waiting for answers
When asked what compels these women to do what they do, their answer is simple, although the problem is a complex one: “Wouldn’t you, too?” Many of these women speak about the undeniable grief and lack of closure of having a missing loved one.
Whether it’s the mother who cooks the same curry every year for her missing son’s birthday, hoping that that would be the year he comes back, or the wife still holding on to the shirt her husband last wore before he left, never to return again, all of these women are waiting. Waiting for the State to answer their questions, to provide closure, to finally receive confirmation so that they can perform a burial.
In 2019, former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country due to the citizen-led protests demanding his resignation, said all missing persons were in fact dead. However, it falls to the State to implement mechanisms to transparently grapple with the issues of disappearances. This is a responsibility that has been abdicated by the Sri Lankan Government, although some progress had been made by the Office for Missing Persons set up in 2017.
Despite this, the Tamil mothers of the disappeared continue to protest and demand answers. They do this by defying the scorching heat and the thunderous rains. These women show up day after day to seek justice and to protest the unjust hand they’ve been dealt. To some this may seem a pointless feat. For these women and their allies, every act of protest signifies the failure of the State and the importance of persistent accountability.
Enforced disappearances aren’t the only issue these women protest. A significant challenge post-conflict has been the lands that have not been returned to their original owners in the North. When families were forced to flee their homes during the later stages of the war, it included the families from Keppapiluvu in Mullaitivu. Over a decade later these lands have not been returned.
Dozens of women in Keppapilavu have been staging a protest at the entrance to the army camp which they claim sits on their ancestral land. These women have lost many things during the war, for some of them this land is all that is left to call their own. Although they are pitting themselves against the state and the military it is a risk they are willing to take.
Protest as a way of life
These women-led protests are a critical tool of reflection for us as communities and as a nation. The recent “aragalaya” was a lesson on what mass citizen-led protests can achieve. However, discourse around the “aragalaya” also shined a much needed light on issues such as enforced disappearances and the struggles of the women in the North, that had been previously ignored or pushed under the rug. In an interview, former Commissioner for Human Rights Ambika Satkunanathan stated in reference to the people of the North: “Their entire life is a protest, their existence is the ‘aragalaya’.”
She makes an important distinction here, of protest being a way of life, and of signifying actual existence. In a sense the surviving and thriving of marginalised and discriminated groups and communities is an everyday act of protest against the system that continues to marginalise them. But unlike the “aragalaya”, which enjoyed the support of middle class and upper-middle class urban communities including public figures, the protests of the Northern women rarely get even a headline, and most certainly not through major media outlets.
It makes us ask the questions about whose struggles matter to us as a country, about which stories get told and what others get silenced.
Persistence and resilience
Women-led protests in the North not only highlight the resilience of women, but also their commitment to truth and transparency. Although the subject of the protests is a deeply personal one, their commitment to find answers has not wavered despite the painful nature of the answers they seek. These women are teaching all of us about the importance of persistence, even when the odds are highly stacked against us.
What the future holds for these women is uncertain. Sri Lanka’s changing political realities and priorities suggest that their fight is long from over. However, we can choose to be allies in their protest; not only when it is popular to do so, if ever it is, but even when it is a risk. While these women’s voices are powerful on their own, our support will only amplify their message further. These women and their protests are a mirror to the failure of the State and our own apathy. For as long as Sri Lanka ignores its outstanding responsibility to these women we will not have truly reconciled with the atrocities of our past.
(The writer is a gender and peacebuilding activist and researcher. She is passionate about amplifying the experiences and voices of women in the North of Sri Lanka)
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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.