Under the FOKUS programme UNSCR 1325 - Women Building Peace in Sri Lanka, 13 war affected people from Trincomalee and Puttalam came to Colombo to submit many unresolved concerns to the Secretariat for Coordinating Reconciliation Mechanisms.
The participants at the event included relatives of missing persons, FOKUS and NPC staff and District Inter Religious Committee (DIRC) members. The women from Trincomalee made an oral submission, while women from Puttalam handed over a statement to the Director of Local Activities Coordination Unit of National Secretariat for Coordination of Reconciliation Mechanism (NSCRM), Sanjeewa Wimalagunaratne, calling on the government to take necessary action to resolve the issues.
The concerns raised were about missing persons, land, housing, self employment opportunities for women, vocational training and jobs for youth, problems faced by women headed households, implementation of Office of Missing Persons and need of involvement of international experts in the accountability system.
A request to look into the implementation of the language policy in Puttalam was submitted to the Minister of Minister of National Co-existence, Dialogue and Official Languages, Mano Ganesan.
“We have talked many times to many officials. We have had demonstrations asking for the truth about our children. We have accepted the fact that many our children, husbands, fathers and brothers were killed during the war. But can anybody tell us that what happened to the children who were given over to the authorities? How long do we have to wait to know the truth? Let us know whether they are alive or not. Then we can accept it,” pleaded a mother who lost her child soon after the war.