‘An International Women’s Day (IWD) Celebration & Conference’ was held in Toronto earlier this month, highlighting the various achievements of women globally and examining the social and economic issues faced by Tamil women in the North-East and the diaspora.

Organised by the Canadian Tamil Women’s Development Organization (CTWDO) at the Delta Toronto East in Scarborough, Ontario, the event saw various speakers and panels discussing issues ranging from indigenous women in Canada to issues faced by Tamil women in the North-East of Sri Lanka and domestic violence of South Asian women in the diaspora.

The conference began with an equity statement presented by Darshika Selvasivam, affirming that the event was a safe space that recognized each and every individual, regardless of their various identities such as race, religion, age, gender or sexual orientation, and also recognised the gender parity that exists.

Keynote speeches were delivered by Tasha Manoranjan the founder and director of People for Equality and Relief in Sri Lanka (PEARL) and Nimmi Gowrinathan the former Director of South Asia Programs and UN Representative for Operations USA during 2004-2011.

Manoranjan who spent over a year documenting the human right violations against Tamils in the Northern part of the country, expanded on three key points, which included the issue of genocide and of the current crisis, in particular that Tamil women are facing due to Sinhalisation, militarisation, sexual violence and reproductive violence.

Gowrinathan discussed her study, “How Women Rebel: Gender and Agency in Sri Lanka” which examined the impact of militarisation, gender-based violence and displacement on women’s political identities. She similarly spoke on issues that affect the Tamil women in the North-East to this day and the hardships they have endured pre-2009 and post-2009.

A panel discussion saw Dennis Booth, a member of the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto and active advocate for indigenous people and women’s rights, speak on the importance of honest and open dialogue, when addressing what the indigenous people faced during the establishment of Canada. She also reiterated the need to speak about and understand how historical traumas have shaped, affected and hurt the realities and futures of the indigenous people, specifically when it came to the residential schooling system and the Indian Act, indicating that it was both racist and sexist. Booth shared stories of her own childhood, having been a victim of the ‘Sixties Scoop’ where in the early 80s, she was taken away from her Native family and placed with a non-Native family, and told not to participate in her culture. As a result, many indigenous women were married off to non-Native men, losing their status and what can be viewed as a systematic cultural genocide.

Jessica Chandrashekar a doctoral candidate in Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies at York University, who is currently researching on the case of Sri Lanka to critique the concept of ‘reconciliation’ as a transitional justice program, spoke about her experience interviewing Tamil women in Vanni. According to her research, there are said to be 40,000 widows in the region alone, a number she believes to be an underestimate, with most of them marginalized and facing oppression and violence. Chandrashekar outlined key issues faced by Tamil women in the North-East, highlighting militarisation, sexual violence, disappearances, physical and mental disabilities and the large number of orphans.

Speaking on militarisation and insecurity, Chandrashekar stated that since 2009, there are an estimated 300-400,000 Sri Lankan army personal in the Northern Province alone. She noted these are male, Sinhala speaking individuals (not including the police and paramilitary), sent to control a Tamil population of just over 1 million. According to Chandrashekar, with around 60-80,000 women heads of household in the North, this militarisation creates a gendered, racialised, violent and insecure context. The second issue she addressed was of sexual violence and of reported sterilisation. Chandrashekar added that to stop rape related pregnancies, a doctor in the province had said that many women were requesting abortions and to be sterilised. She went on to speak on the key issue of orphans in the North-East, stating that there were accusations of abuse in government run orphanages with many children restricted from leaving or visiting any remaining family members. Chandrashekar concluded,

“How can a mother who searches for her child call the war over? How can women who are harassed by the army see this as the end of the conflict?”

The final panellist Sarah Bokhari, founder of ProLearning1: Stop Domestic Violence on Women Project and an educator with a background in Forensic Psychology, Canadian Politics, Human Rights, and War on Terrorism spoke on domestic violence of women in the immigrant South Asian community. She posed issues found by abused South Asian women in Canada and discussed the lifelong economical and social costs faced by victims and survivors of domestic violence, adding many women are entrapped in a life cycle of abuse and the threat of deportation is used to scare them into submission.

The conclusion of the event came with the reading of Resolutions presented by CTWDO, which resolved that,

“the Canadian Tamil Women Development Organization calls on any international investigations on Sri Lanka to investigate the systematic rape of former LTTE female cadres; and

Be It Further Resolved that the Canadian Tamil Women Development Organization places the systematic rape of former Tamil female liberation fighters as part and parcel of Sri Lanka’s genocidal policy, and calls on the United Nations to set up a transitional mechanism to immediately halt the genocide in the NorthEast; and

Be It Further Resolved that the Canadian Tamil Women Development Organization demands that the Sri Lanka government calls for the unconditional release of all Tamil prisoners of war and an immediate end to the policy of rape and genocide against the Tamil Nation; and

Be It Further Resolved that the Canadian Tamil Women Development Organization calls upon the United Nations to establish an independent referendum to facilitate the democratic will of Tamils, as per the right to self-determination established in the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and

Be It Further Resolved that the Canadian Tamil Women Development Organization endorses all findings of the Permanent People Tribunal on Sri Lanka report and call for an international investigation into war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide; and

Be It Further Resolved that the Canadian Tamil Women Development Organization will continue to build solidarity with local, national and international women’s struggles for equality and justice.”