INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
have been subjected to enforced disappearance over the decades and hold those responsible to account, a UN Human Rights Office report
released today (May 17) says.It calls on the Government to acknowledge the involvement of state security forces and affiliated paramilitary
It is critical for these crimes to be investigated fully
positive formal steps by successive governments, such as the ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons
from Enforced Disappearance, the establishment of the Office on Missing Persons and the Office for Reparations, tangible progress on the
ground towards comprehensively resolving individual cases has remained limited, the report finds.Between the 1970s and 2009, widespread
enforced disappearances were carried out primarily by Sri Lankan security forces and affiliated paramilitary groups
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam also engaged in abductions which the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
psychological, social, and economic impact of enforced disappearances on the families of those forcibly disappeared, especially women
As most disappeared individuals have been male, women have often become the sole income-earner for a family, in a labour environment that
at the forefront of efforts to find the disappeared have themselves been subjected to violations, including harassment, intimidation,
surveillance, arbitrary detention, beatings and torture at the hands of army and police
loved one.Under international law, it is a clear obligation for the State to resolve cases of enforced disappearances, which constitute
continuing violations, until the fate and whereabouts of those disappeared are clarified, said the High Commissioner.Yet, most victim
families remain without such clarification
However, only a few of their reports have been made public and even when published, access has usually been limited
Most recommendations, particularly those relating to criminal accountability, have not been implemented
15 years since the end of the armed conflict, and many decades since the earliest waves of enforced disappearances, Sri Lankan authorities
are still failing to ensure accountability for these violations, it added.
