I think the ongoing human rights violations I've documented are against people with a connection to the LTTE. Beyond that the one thing I did come across was a phenomenon that we documented through women's groups that work in Sri Lanka in the north, which is the general physical insecurity of female-headed households, the women who are widows or their husbands have disappeared or are in detention.
We've heard a lot about sexual harassment of those women, plus also what you might call survival sex. They pick one army officer to have a relationship with because it's better than being raped by all those men.
There's a serious problem with unwanted pregnancies now. This particular woman we spoke to, who had to hide her identity, said she was involved in trying to find them underground abortions because abortion is not legal in Sri Lanka unless the woman's life is in jeopardy. There clearly is a really serious problem in the former conflict areas where there are a lot of women compared to men and there's a very heavy military presence and there's a great deal of physical insecurity. What you hear, from people who visit that area, is that the houses in remote areas and paddy fields are shacks. They don't have proper doors that lock. So these women are very vulnerable, especially at night.
We also hear quite a bit about former LTTE fighters or cadres who are forced to sign in with the military authorities on a weekly basis and there are stories of sexual and physical harassment during those forced signings in.