The Sri Lankan Army has rejected a statement from the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) which accuses it of breaking a UN convention on discrimination against women, released last week.

The statement from the ECCHR said that women in the North-East were subject to harassment and abuse from military and police personnel, who have a huge presence in the Tamil homeland.

The human rights group also criticised the country’s Prevention of Terrorism Act which they said,

Sri Lanka has said it is committed to implement the recommendations of the LLRC, despite the ‘setback’ of the resolution on Sri Lanka which passed in March.

Speaking at the 20th UN Human Rights Council Session in Geneva, Sri Lanka’s representative Manisha Gunasekera claimed some of the recommendations were already being implemented.

However she expressed displeasure at the ‘ill-conceived’ US-sponsored resolution that passed during the last session.

The United States State Department has stated that displaced persons and war widows are more likely to be victims of human trafficking in Sri Lanka, with young boys being forced into prostitution, in their annual report on human trafficking.

The report, released on Tuesday, stated that,

"Within the country, women and children are subjected to sex trafficking in brothels. Boys are more likely than girls to be forced into prostitution in coastal areas for domestic child sex tourism."

It also went on to say that,

"Internally-displaced persons, war widows, and unregistered female migrants remained particularly vulnerable to human trafficking."

Earlier reports have stated that war widows were being forced into prostitution in the North-East, with rackets taking children from the North-East into tourists resorts in the South being uncovered.

The report acknowledged government complicity in running prostitution rings, noting,

"Government employees’ complicity in trafficking remained a problem. There were allegations that police and other officials accepted bribes to permit brothels to operate; some of the brothels exploited trafficking victims.

Many recruitment agencies were run by politicians or were politically connected. Some sub-agents cooperated with Sri Lankan officials to procure forged or modified documents, or real documents with false data, to facilitate travel abroad. There were no reported law enforcement actions taken against officials complicit in human trafficking."

A leaked US embassy cable from 2007 stated that Tamil paramilitary groups ran prostitution rings to “take care” of Sri Lankan soldiers, as well as kidnapping and trafficking minors to prostitution rings throughout India and Malaysia. It was reported that some women were forced to have sex with between 5 and 10 soldiers every night.

See our earlier post: Sri Lanka’s leaders complicit in forced prostitution and child sex trafficking (22 Dec 2010)

Amnesty International have asked the UN Human Rights Council to call on Sri Lanka to implement measures to protect human rights and to be prepared to take independent action if Sri Lanka fails to deliver justice to victims of human rights violations.

In a statement, released for the June UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Amnesty said has failed to fulfil its human rights obligations and human rights abuses still take place.

See extracts below:

India’s National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon will visit Sri Lanka later this month, in order to follow up a UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka which was passed in March.

Officials told the Hindu that the visit was,

“a follow-up to the United Nations Human Rights Council vote against the island nation in its last session.”

The organisation Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) has announced the launch of a new revamped website.

The organisation, made up of exiled journalists from the island, released video evidence of Sri Lankan soldiers engaging in extra-judicial killings and stated that they would continue to “endeavor to raise awareness on Sri Lanka as well as challenge undemocratic practices in the island”.

Bashana Abeywardena, convener of JDS said in a press release,

Sri Lankan cabinet minister Champika Ranawaka has warned of “100 more massacres” if the Tamil people of the island were to follow the Tamil National Alliance, who he accused of calling the “nation” out to fight.

Addressing reporters, Power and Energy minister Champika Ranawaka from the JHU, a constituent party of the ruling coalition stated,

"Does Sampanthan want to create 100 more Mullivaikkals?

The Sri Lankan stock exchange is the fourth worst performing bourse in the world, according to a US investment group.

Bespoke Investment Group’s analysis showed the Colombo Stock Exchange’s All Share Price Index, is down by 18.95% on a year to year basis, just ahead of struggling European economies, Spain, Greece and the Ukraine.

Sri Lanka has been best and second best performing stock market in previous years, however after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) started investigating suspect trades and imposed price bands, share prices fell sharply.

Photograph: TamilNet

A large scale protest by Tamil activists in Jaffna against the expropriation of private land by the government, held in front of Jaffna Bus Stand, was blocked by Sri Lankan police on Monday, reports TamilNet.

See here.

Having alleged the protest contained "destructive elements", the Sri Lankan police cited 'legal permission' from a District Court judge to block the protest at the final moment.

A spokesperson for Save The Children in Sri Lanka has stated that the continued presence of the military in the island’s former war zones, continues to have an impact on the trauma of children in the North-East.

Menaca Calyaneratne, director of advocacy for the group stated,

"I think there's still de-mining taking place, so there has to be involvement of the military as well."