SLA humiliates women in Jaffna- Ms Sithamparanathan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 December 2004, 12:13 GMT]
"Women in Jaffna suffer humiliation daily. Smartly dressed women are asked whether they belong to the Liberation Tigers and whether they received military training. Women, especially those with fair complexion, are sexually harassed, said Ms Padmini Sithamparanathan, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian speaking during the voting at the Committee stage of Ministry of Social Welfare, parliamentary sources said.

"If we want to quantify, a conservative estimate is, harassment incidents happen atleast once every hour.

"In Jaffna around 550 persons, mostly men were victims of involuntary disappearance in 1996. Many families have lost their breadwinners. There are now 23,079 war widows who have been forced to become the breadwinners.

"The Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) is an absolute necessity for the Tamil people to address several such grievances and to ensure that displaced people are rehabilitated without delay," she added.