By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS
Colombo : The ethnic conflict that has ravaged Sri Lanka for 25 years burst powerfully into an international AIDS conference here when a Tamil speaker broke down in tears before dozens of delegates while narrating the difficulties faced by refugees in the war zones of the island nation.
Judy Devadawson, a Tamil non-government worker in Trincomalee, stunned delegates Tuesday evening when she spoke of “non-existent” health services in the northern and eastern provinces – the two most conflict-affected parts of Sri Lanka.
“There is a complete collapse of infrastructure in the north and east. Public services are at a complete standstill. There is only one hospital to do testing for HIV – and that service is only offered when you go there, so that no one outside knows where to go for testing,” said Devadawson, who herself has been displaced four times by the civil war between government forces and Tamil rebels.
Her account stood out in sharp contrast to statements by Sri Lankan government ministers who point to the well-known strong health gains made by this Indian Ocean nation, which has one of the lowest HIV prevalence rates in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Sri Lanka has a grand total of 886 (HIV) cases,” Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva told delegates to the 8th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific at its opening Sunday.
Many delegates say that while the health gains made by Sri Lanka – on the back of strong investments and interventions led by the government – cannot be disputed, the absence of any data about the health situation in conflict areas is a major gap in knowledge about the extent of HIV/AIDS in the country.
“There are no figures or data from the north and the east,” conference co-chair A.H. Sheriffdeen told IANS.
“At the same time we do know that members of the armed forces go for rest and recreation to some areas. So far, testing for HIV has been reasonably widespread in Sri Lanka but we don’t know the HIV status for the conflict areas,” he added.
According to several accounts, the northern and eastern provinces have all the ingredients that make for a localised concentration of the virus – even if there is no generalised epidemic in Sri Lanka.
Devadawson, who works for the Women and Childcare Organisation in Trincomalee, said women had been the worst hit by Sri Lanka’s long-running ethnic conflict between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil communities.
Many women have been widowed by the conflict while others are forced to head households in the absence of men who have gone underground. The resulting poverty and unemployment, she said, had forced a large number of women into prostitution.
Research by the group, conducted along with Christian Aid, shows that only 25 percent of sex workers are based in brothels.
“That means 75 percent of the sex work is home-based. Women have been written out, and therefore are forced to offer sexual favours for their survival. Culturally, sex cannot be negotiated in the north and east,” she said.
“We will not know the risks household women are going through in these areas. There are illegal abortions, unwanted pregnancies, early marriage, and lack of access to information about HIV. There is no data on HIV/AIDS, significantly low interest and low level of work in these regions. Yet, it is reported as low prevalence,” she added.
The other side of the coin is the behaviour of the armed forces.
“Recently there was a rape that took place between two military check posts which were within 100 metres of each other. The girl had been injected with a sedative and we found her in her home, naked and unconscious.
“Each home has child abuse and violence against women. But there is no place to go for grievances, no redressal system.”
According to Devadawson’s group, 680,000 Sri Lankans – mostly Tamils – have been displaced by the civil war and another half a million by the 2004 Tsunami.
Some delegates criticised the Colombo conference, saying it had deliberately ignored the issue of conflict.
“Most countries in Asia and the Pacific are experiencing some form of conflict, yet there is no linkage being made in this conference between conflict and HIV,” said Joe Thomas, a Melbourne-based academic and editor of AIDS Asia e-forum.
The reason, he guessed, is that because most HIV programmes across the world are driven by governments, “some states may be withholding HIV prevention resources as a weapon in conflict areas”.