SRI LANKA: Police refused to take action on rape of girls

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that a mother, whose two teenage daughters had been raped, one remains missing after having been forcibly abducted, was refused by the police to have her complaints recorded at the police station. The policemen on duty also did not take action in pursuing the perpetrators as they escape taking one victim with them.

CASE DETAILS:

Seetha and her husband were living together with their two teenage daughters, aged 18 and 16, in a small mud house in Kalmunai, Ampara District. Her husband usually works in Colombo and returns home in the evening.

But at dawn on 10 May 2008, while Seetha and her two daughters were asleep, three men had come to their place forcing themselves into their house. The men, who are carrying knives and pistols, claimed they were from the security forces that had come to conduct a search in their place. The supposed search was made on pretext that an explosion had taken place in Ampara few hours earlier.

Shortly after the men arrived, they immediately held Seetha pinning her down to the floor restraining her movement while covering her mouth. Seetha could smell alcohol in the breaths of the three men.

At the time, Seetha’s two daughters were inside their bedroom that she had locked before he opened the door. He locked the girl’s bedroom anticipating that they would harm them as it usually happens amongst girls in their village. Her husband too, had tried avoiding working during nighttime in order to stay with his family.

While two of them searched her house for some valuables, one of them tried to enter into the bedroom where Seetha’s daughters stayed. The girls were also awoken by the sounds of noise from the outside and hid underneath their bed.

When the men asked Seetha what was inside the bedroom and why it was locked, Seetha, in her desperate plea to push the men away, played dumb telling them she was alone in their house. She also told them that she locked it because her nephew, who was staying the room, is in Colombo at the time. They however, did not believe her and continued on breaking into the door where they saw her two daughters inside.

They dragged the girls out and threw them on the bed. The two men stripped Seetha’s daughters naked and raped them. Seetha tried screaming but another man held her and tied her mouth with a rope to prevent her from screaming. She was helpless in seeing her two daughters being raped by them. The pain she had to suffer in hearing her two daughters scream while being rape was unbearable for her.

Few minutes later, the men had stopped raping her daughter leaving them on the floor splattered with blood. They, too, before leaving threatened her and her two daughters to keep quit; otherwise they would be killed should they tell anyone about what had happened to them. Seetha’s older daughter, who could barely walk, came to unty her before collapsing while her younger daughter remained unconscious.

Seetha immediately took them to the Kalmunai Hospital with the help of her relative who was living nearby. Later that evening, she took her two daughters back home after the hospital personnel, who apparently do not want to get involved, refused to treat her daughters when they started having high fever.

“The doctors were afraid to get involved and after treating them, they wanted me to take them home immediately”, she said in an interview with a local newspaper. Her relative stayed with her and assisted her as she too had to recover from her shock. She further said in an interview that: “I felt I was the guilty one as I had to watch helplessly as my daughters were being raped. Such a disaster should never fall on any mother. There were times when I felt like I was about to collapse but if I had not been strong, my daughters would have died”.

When Seetha’s husband returned home, his in laws told him about what had happened to their children. While told of his daughter’s rape, he collapsed on the floor. When he regained consciousness, Seetha’s told him that they should report to the police; however, he told her not to do so because of fear that the perpetrators would return and harm his family again. She told him that though their family had already been destroyed nevertheless they were not killed by them.

However, later that night, another five men, armed with sharp weapons and carrying pistols, once against break into their house. Upon gaining entry, they assaulted Seetha’s husband severely and his relative who was around. Then, they went to their daughters’ bedroom and soon after were seen dragging their elder daughter, who was still suffering from a high temperature, with them.

They took and forced her to a white van, which was parked outside, and escaped taking their daughter with them. It was the last time they had seen her daughter. Her whereabouts remains unknown since then. Minutes later, Seetha, with her husband and relative suffering from profuse bleeding, rushed to the police station to report the incident.

However, Seetha alleged that when they arrived at the police station, the policemen on duty had refused to record the complaint telling her they were busy with election related incidents. They, too, told her to come back the next day and to produce with her several documents as proof that she was indeed a local resident of Kalmunai before they would entertain her complaint.

Seetha, however, left the police station without returning back. Later she filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission. The trauma that Seetha had suffered is so deep. She remains hopeful, by waiting outside their house, that her daughter would return home safe. Her younger daughter, too, is still recovering from the incident.

On May 22, the office of the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) was reported to have commenced an investigation into this case. Also, the Police Women’s and Children’s Bureau in Ampara has also begun its investigations.

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write letters to the authorities listed below urging them to ensure this case is immediately investigated. They must exhaust all means to locate the disappeared victims and to identify those responsible in raping them whether or not they are members of security forces. They too, must look into who are those policemen who had refused to take action into this case.

Please be informed that the AHRC has also written separate letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women calling for urgent intervention in this case.

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER