SLA alleged of forcing fleeing Tamils to strip and walk naked

Sri Lankan "peacekeepers" sent home over sex-for-pay scandal in Haiti "Every two months a Tamil woman is gang-raped and murdered by the Sri Lankan security forces." Statement by NGO, Women Against Rape, at United Nations Commission on Human Rights

An occupying army of 9,000 UN military troops are currently posted to Haiti representing countries from around the world. This week, headlines announced that 114 Sri Lankan troops have been sent home in a sex-for-pay scandal where food was the currency and hungry young Haitian girls were the victims. These are not the first accusations of sexual exploitation and rape by UN forces in Haiti .As in the Congo, Kosovo, and elsewhere that UN "peacekeepers" operate, this is but the latest in an epidemic of sexual exploitation and trafficking by UN troops.

Just who are the Sri Lankan troops in Haiti? Blue helmets can't disguise the origins of troops who compose UN military forces. A commentary in Haiti-Cuba-Venezuala Analysis states, "Over the last thirty years, back home in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), soldiers used rape to subjugate a separatist group known as the Tamil. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or “Tamil Tigers” challenged the Sri Lankan government and armed forces over the right to their own homeland in the north and east of the country. In March 2000, a UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women expressed “grave concern” over lack of proper investigation into allegations of Sri Lankan soldiers’ gang raping women and children. Also, in 2000, the Asian Human Rights Commission stated that the rapes against Tamil women were systematic in nature and were used as a weapon of war."

SLA alleged of forcing fleeing Tamils to strip and walk naked [TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 April 2009, 14:47 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) personnel at the check posts in Jaffna, Vavuniyaa and elsewhere in Vanni subject both men and women coming from Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) held areas into SLA controlled areas to naked body checking before entering the check post, according to information given by the women held in the SLA detention centres to women representatives of Non-governmental Organizations in Jaffna. Though there are women SLA personnel at the check posts the women, irrespective of their age, have to undress at a distance from the check posts and walk naked to the check post where they are subjected to body check, the NGO representatives who visited the SLA detention centre in Jaffna said.

The same procedure is said to be followed in the SLA check posts in Vanni and Vavuniyaa.

The men coming from Liberation Tiger held areas too are subjected to the same procedure of checking.

Both men and women have to walk naked from a considerable distance from the checking cabin where they are examined closely.

Only after this checking, the civilians’ particulars are registered before being sent to the different SLA detention centres.

The civil society organizations in Jaffna including Women Welfare Associations have expressed their strong condemnation of this particular manner of body check by SLA soldiers.