September 2003, Trincomalee, Sri Lanka

My first entry into the great district of Trincomalee situated in the north east of Sri Lanka was extraordinary. It was again on a research tour that I made her acquaintance, and it has been a flirtatious, passionate love affair since. The short-lived ceasefire agreement between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) was still on then and this made travel into hitherto inaccessible parts of the country, such as the ones controlled by the LTTE, possible for many of us of a different ethnicity.

The Trincomalee Harbour – the only natural harbour in Sri Lanka, and in this part of the region I think, did not fail to take my breath away on first view. She looks onto the great blue-black and exotic Indian Ocean, rich in uncommon sea creatures and a perennial wisdom that only the ocean and sky share between them.

The purpose of our research found eight of us, my colleagues and I, balancing on a narrow boat suspended on overhead ropes for support on either end. We were crossing a lagoon known for sucking in human beings to satiate her appetite and perhaps a kind of protestant anger towards the atrocities committed by us humans for decades on either side of her banks against one another. We all let out loud sighs of relied once the boatman got hold of the bank to tie the boat onto a pole on one end, feeling not-so-wanton and ridiculously brave all of a sudden.

We made our way through patches of freshly cut jungle, scattered here and there with structures that took the form of probably houses at one time, ages ago. Many were just cemented flooring with a moldy concrete wall or two, overrun with foliage, entirely bullet-riddled. Even the inanimate structures such as these seemed to be weeping in pain, almost as though they were watching us with accusatory eyes. It was, to me, a mixture of anger, sadness, pain and despair, and strangely, even suspicious hope that perhaps the Sri Lankans living on this piece of serene beauty had at last knocked some sense into their heads.

We were welcomed by a cadre in civil clothes, who seemed to both smile warmly and yet regard us with so much distrust, all at the same time. I didn’t blame him. With very few words and mostly nods and gestures he led us to a tiny little hamlet that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. There was only one formal structure, and there seemed to be no houses in sight at all, although in an area of about 500 square feet there were a lot of people, mostly urchins, hovering about with makeshift play things, armed with sticks and old tires for amusement.

We approached the hamlet cautiously. The purpose of our visit was to visit a young girl, a 14 year old, who had been harassed and violated by an adult homeowner at whose house she was working as a maid. I can’t imagine why I would have taken the information so casually, as it completely threw me off balance as I beheld the girl in person and as my Tamil-speaking colleagues translated the ordeal this young thing had been through in less than one year.

Before our eyes lay the girl on a dirty and tattered piece of cloth on the floor in the center of a rectangular plot of land. She did not seem to be quite conscious of our presence. In fact, she was writhing in so much pain, holding the large bump on her stomach, the muscles on her face stretched in pain. Her elderly mother was sitting on the floor as well beside her daughter. The girl’s younger brother, about nine years, was standing by a tree close to them with one leg on the tree trunk, chewing vigorously on a reed that he held to his mouth. All three of them were incredibly thin, sporting bulging eyes and stunted bodies – signs of the lack of nutrition and possibly severe under nourishment.

Not too far away from the girl on the ground and her mother, was a makeshift space that could only be assumed to be their home, if it could even be called that. Shockingly, it consisted of four sarees tied together to four jungle poles erected on the hard ground, with a large plastic sheet for a roof. Inside this incredibly flimsy hut were some dirty pots and pans. To the left of the hut were some stones covered in ashes in the center – the family hearth.

I asked the mother in my non-fluent Tamil how many children she had altogether to which she responded she had nine in all. If I was shocked out of my senses, I struggled hard not to show it on my face. I knelt down on the ground next to the girl, facing her mother, held her hand and asked softly what had happened to the girl. The mother took my hand in hers and looked at my face long and hard. Then as a tear rolled down her left cheek, she explained that since she hardly had any work in the fields due to the ensuing drought and due to the tension and fear in Trincomalee that prevented rural folk from venturing into the towns in search of other coolie work, she had to depend on her younger children to increase their income. This was inspite of Sri Lanka’s well-established social welfare system – which include a free education system in which primary and secondary education is free of cost and compulsory by law until 14 years, as well as a well developed but poorly administered social security system that includes monthly dry rations, livelihoods loans and compulsory savings for the 30% of Sri Lanka’s families that live below the poverty line (defined at families with a monthly income of less than Rs.2600 or roughly US $25.)

Her elder children were married and lived in the vicinity, but as they had children and families of their own, she could not burden them with dependence. She pointed to a frail and thin man a distance away, dragging on a beedie – a local cigarette – sitting on his haunches on the ground next to a few other younger men, talking. She identified him as her husband. She told me that he had a bad back and could not do any hard work anymore and whatever money he earned doing this and that would all be swallowed down in the bottles of poison he consumed daily. She threw a sidelong glance of disgust at him, accompanied by another big tear down her other cheek.

She went on to explain that although her daughter and younger son were both in school, her daughter voluntarily dropped out of school so her younger brother could continue his schooling and took up a job as a maid in the house of an assistant school principal in Trincomalee town. She was resident there.

Several months into her work, one day while the mistress was away, the assistant school principal called her to his bedroom to delegate some chore. However, as she entered, he had closed the door behind her and had raped her. He had slapped her mouth shut so that her screams were muffled. She was scared and beaten so hard during the entire horrific episode that when he was through with her, she had lain there completely traumatized and motionless. He cleaned himself up and sneered at her, telling her to keep her mouth shut, since he knew that her family was the most important thing to her. She dragged herself out of his room and cried until the mistress of the house returned.

Upon her return, the girl went running in tears to retell the entire sordid story. She was unprepared for what ensued – the mistress hit her hard against her cheek and told her to stop spreading such lies and to go back to work. The girl never told her mother, afraid she may lose her job and more afraid that her younger brother may have to quit school and start working instead. Therefore, she obediently stayed on. It baffles me still whenever I think of this part of this incident the amount of familial love, kindness and immense sacrifice that exists among families, regardless of economic circumstances. Human love wherever it exists is still the greatest miracle of all.

By this time, I was clutching the mother’s hand so tight, my knuckles were turning white. Then she told me that her daughter had attained age some years ago, but that she was so innocent in her ways, she hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary when she started missing her period over some months. It was only when she was getting dizzy spells and nausea that the mistress in the house had figured out that this child was pregnant. Without a word, the girl was paid her last salary and sent back home.

It was at this point that both she and her mother knew that she was carrying a baby in her womb. The girl that lay before me was eight months into her pregnancy. In my head I could hear a voice reverberating ‘No way! She’s fourteen! She’s ONLY fourteen! She’s just fourteen! She’s a child! She’s a child!’ Tears stinging all our eyes, we forced ourselves to concentrate.

The girl had never been to see a medical officer; the local public midwife had visited them once several months before and had given some useful advice on how to keep her rested and fed with a consistent and healthy diet. But in a family that managed barely one meal a day, that too consisting of some rice and a vegetable, they were unable to provide the girl with any remotely nutritious food, let alone what the midwife had recommended. The girl’s will to survive and even manage a weak smile at me, somehow gave me hope that her child will also fight its way into this world, even against all odds.

We had to leave this family as time was running out for us and we still needed to cross the lagoon and make our way through a dirt track along two and half hours’ drive into the town where we would compile our report. I remember we took much longer to get into town, as we were forced to detour from the normal route to avoid traveling past an LTTE training camp, on the off chance that those of us from the south turned informer to the Sri Lankan Army.

We were poorly paid researchers, however, we emptied all we could from our stipend and managed to secure a couple of kilograms of rice, sugar and milk packets from the only grocery in the vicinity, to hand over as our contribution to the family. This seemed a better alternative to giving them money, which would probably have been snatched away anyway by the head of the household to sustain his habit.

As I look back on my frayed notes of that day, many years later, I notice the scribbles on my notepad of my observations of the environment around the girl’s home. The drought and water scarcity was so severe there that the red earth had large cracks running across it. Next to no vegetation existed on the dry bare ground, excepting a few large trees and some thorn bushes. The cruel sun beat down on the earth mercilessly, leaving every living thing parched below it. As though poverty and neglect from the powers that be were not hard enough to suffer through, the climate and environment were forces that seemed to have little sympathy on these communities as well.

That young girl’s face and her plight are burned into my memory. I remember wondering what that strange and horrible world we had entered into was, upon reaching the location where the girl lived. I remember wondering how this remote, dry, barren area could be a part of Sri Lanka – so rich in resources and full of life in most parts? With such a well-administered health care and education system across most of the country, how is it possible that within just 65,500 square kilometers of area consisting all of Sri Lanka, we could have missed this village, when a young girl and her family suffers with such burning need? At the time, with the existence of a ceasefire agreement, however shallow and short lived, what were we doing without getting much needed help to those who needed it the most? How could we ever forgive ourselves?

Today, we are back at war, but communities in the deep reaches of the country remain chained and suffocating from a more sinister enemy than what we have made each other out to be – cruel poverty and debilitating hunger have encroached our villages and the neglected patches of our beloved little country. Every child shackled with the fierce effects of malnourishment, every mother stretching herself to protect her children from a worse fate than hers, every father drinking himself to death every night punishing himself for his inability to provide for or protect his family from all the monsters that roam freely in our world, every young girl whose childhood is stripped from her and is forced to reckon with a reality she never chose, every young boy with a storm brewing in the deep crevices of his heart, furious at the injustices all around him, the ever-fleeting inaccessible opportunities to dream bigger and freer, ensnared into the only real option of violence to occupy some space to live and breathe – theirs is a world that to many of us don’t even exist, a figment, a tall story, a reality in a distant land unknown to us. But the truth is closer to home, in fact, is right here in our home.

Sometimes, sleeplessness, restlessness and deep discomfort that lead to proactive action are perhaps the only antidote to right the wrongs that we have collectively, globally, contributed to create and breed. We may never be through in a lifetime, but at least we would have started.

July 16 2003 – Galle, Sri Lanka

The shrill sound of babies crying shatters the silence of the birds and trees as I enter into the imposing white building. It is a bevy of activity inside and for just a minute it’s all confusion for me. But I regain my composure fast and look around. My colleagues and I are surrounded by children of all ages, shapes, sizes and forms. Some smile shyly; others hide in the shadows of the attendants now coming to welcome us. We are in the Children’s Remand Home in Galle. This is where the wounded, forgotten, damaged children get hidden away, in case they spoil serendipity for all passers by in this tourist district, also known for the ramparts of Dutch colonialism and a once monumental cricket stadium – both reminders to the offerings of those who forced rule over this country for decades, I think wryly. Galle is also known for its lighthouse and the surfers’ waves that drive most ocean-lovers to it over long weekends. Also soul-searching artsy types to brood in the concoctions of their thoughts until inspiration strikes them to award-winning literature or some such momentary achievement.

A snotty, mouse-like child of about eight tugs on my t-shirt and puts his hand on my arm, as though I were the dial-a-playmate he had ordered over the phone. Not daring to dissuade him, I step up to my marching orders from this little punk, a familiar mushy feeling taking over my usually practical and no-nonsense demeanour – I know, ridiculous for my height of five feet (and two inches, I remind myself emphatically!). Once again I try to avoid pleasure taking over my work, but fail miserably as usual. The child leads me to a circle of other children, engaged in a game of karam. Well, not quite engaged in the game, some scraping the pieces on the board in a board game version of G-force or Voltron, while others sit around squealing with laughter. That moment is bliss for me. Nothing in the world is more beautiful and intoxicating like a child laughing. What a rare thing that is in this monstrous world of ours.

After a few minutes of entertaining the kids with my antics of a clown, I pull out my notebook and pen as naturally as breathing and find a spot with one of the chief attendants to find out about the history of the institution and the variety of reasons for the presence of these children. The lady in question, a hard-nosed woman of considerable proportion, never failed to switch on the look of gentleness towards a child who would distract her for this and that in the course of our conversation. I watch her manage the balance with wonder and admiration. She tells me that many of the children here were ‘secured’ by Probation Officers working for the National Child Protection Authority while on their rounds in the villages, after serial visits to their homes found all the signs and evidences of sexual and physical abuse. Mostly from their parents or close relatives. She tells me this latter bit of information as though she has repeated it to many others before me. Obviously she has. Before police officers, magistrates and department officials. I shudder at the seriousness of her job and silently thank God for the nature of mine, feeling a little guilty for my thought.

Other children are here because their only remaining parent is in custody on charges of neglect, abuse or misconduct towards their child, or for minor offenses like theft or the illicit distilling of alcohol. The primary reason my colleagues and I are here is to investigate the prevalence of child sex tourism in certain locations in Sri Lanka, including in Galle, for a regional report. Our investigations were not as simple as we had expected, due to the covertness of operations going on where child sex and pornography are concerned in this country. Children are embraced by Sri Lankan culture. Still, there are the many exceptions that result in hateful effects on them, which I blame on the curse – poverty stoked by the global economy. Even so inexcusable, I think to myself - more than a little self-righteous and naïve for my 24 years.

I collect my quota of case studies for the report soon after. They bring to me a girl of 14 years. She’s as tall as me, and smiles but it fails to reach her eyes. I make a note of that. She sits next to me and I instantly beam to make her a little more comfortable and in an attempt to appear approachable. That’s one thing most Sri Lankans respond to – a smile. It seems to have done its work, almost. She smiles back weakly, justifiably unsure of what I would want with her. I make a quick self-study to see if I really am approachable. Generally when visiting villages I am very plainly dressed – no jewellery, no make up, my hair tied simply at the back and slippers on my feet. To elicit information from someone else, you must transform into an almost non-entity so that the subject is only aware of his or her story and you are merely the recording device. I do this well, most of the time. But often it is respect, politeness and an elevation of the subject’s person and humanity that is most crucial. I have learned this over the years.

After a few general questions about her school, her friends and her favourite things, I subtly lead to the subject that brings her the most pain – her family and her home. Isn’t it amazing that the place that ought to be the most secure and pleasant for a child is for this girl and many others like her the most feared of all? I am careful to observe how she speaks softly and respectfully of her mother, almost in defense, just in case someone were to blame her for the plight her three daughters are in today. I was informed before the interview that the girl I would be talking to is mentally challenged from birth and slow in comprehension and speech. However, she had gone the farthest in school – up to Grade three, whereas her older and younger sisters were not able to go on to Grade one. The older sister, 17, was kept at home most her life to help with the home chores and learned to sweep the garden and home, to fetch water from the village well and to wash clothes. She is incapable of forming complete sentences or of expressing herself except through her mother. Her younger sister, 12, walked to school with her on most days for company and idled around the school compound until she was done, and on other days she wandered around the village paddy fields.

I gather from the simple and slow sentences the girl manages that a year to date her father had been laid off from work at the local factory, at which point the drinking became far worse. She recalls him being intoxicated most days and nights. (Galle and most parts of the western and southern coastal areas are infamous for the production of illicit hooch; Sri Lanka in the mid-nineties also had the enviable dual-title of being the country with the highest rates of both alcoholism and suicide!) He would stagger home in the night and pick a fight with her mother whenever she asked him about work or about the household finances. The ensuing fights would always end up with him striking her mother, one particular night she recalls her father dragging her crying mother by her hair, slamming her into the only room in the wattle and daub house and shutting the door from the outside. He turned on her older sister next just because she stood with her partially blind eyes fixed on him, not able to understand what was going on. The rest of these nights are a blank for her.

The attendant sits by me and whispers that the father had needed money for his drinks one evening and had asked his friends from the factory. One friend had made a suggestion to him, which he had accepted without a second thought, or so it seems. The girl relates how her father came one evening obviously drunk and, after inquiring of their mother’s whereabouts, dragged his eldest daughter with him out of the house and into the woods nearby. She had heard nothing after that. Apparently, her sister had been rented for an hour or two to one of his factory buddies for Rs.20 (US 0.20 cents) for sex. In this case, rape of a minor, not just any minor, one who is not aware of what is going on. This practice had gone on for some months, well hidden from their mother. She only found out when they had to sell whatever little furniture they had to find money for an abortion when the eldest was found to be pregnant (abortion is illegal in Sri Lanka). The experience of forced sex by strangers may have been harrowing enough for that young girl, but the trauma of undergoing an abortion has sent her into such deep shock that since she has stopped talking to anyone, even her mother.

It was the abortion that had led probation officers down the track to discover the racket, in the meantime however, their father had successfully lured both her and her younger sister into the shameful sale for sex among his former workplace buddies. The girl had only undergone this harrowing experience just once, before she spilled the beans to her mother ignoring her father’s threats to harm their mother. But before their mother could do anything about it, the child protection officers were onto them and had instantly remanded the father, but as a matter of law in this complicated case, had also separated the girls from the mother for a short period of time until their security could be assured.

I am a second child and one of three girls. My father treats each of us as though we were princesses (although I have always harbored the secret knowledge that I am the most special to my dad). It is inconceivable to me that a father could be so un-fatherly. Didn’t he help to create these three young lives? Weren’t they conceived in love? Did he not take on the responsibility to protect their mortal bodies and their honour with his life? How can the protector be the offender? How can your own children be the prey? How can a man allow it?

And yet, this happened. In Sri Lanka. I heard it from the mouth of the prey. When the two sisters were brought out to share more information if I needed any, I myself had lost the ability to talk. This was personal to me. It hurt and as I write, it still hurts. Of course, I have lived to see many days since and have had to open my ears and eyes to more dark human realities in the course of my work. But I will never forget their eyes. I remember handing a sheet of paper and a pencil to the second girl and asking her to write about anything she liked. I assured her that I would help her write it. She took the pencil and stared at the paper for a long while. Then as though there was nothing else she could write about, she wrote and underlined the heading of a brief essay, as her gift to me. She wrote the word in Sinhala: “mother”.

I don’t know where those three girls are today. I never returned to the Remand Home to follow up. But I have prayed for them often and have wished better days for their future. I pray no girl has to ever go through that kind of brutal deception and betrayal from her father. The title of ‘parent’ is one that must be deserved, desired and consciously adorned, not bestowed on one for the sake of engagement in the act of procreation or a as a matter of social obligation. There are, as in this case, many other elements that have resulted in the sad outcome related here – poverty, job insecurity and the lack of technical training and education, alcoholism and the lack of social awareness of the rights of children and the disabled. Even so, whichever way you try to understand it, our reality is blighted now, our peace shattered and our hope for the future of the children of this country disturbed. And with each experience, the more I confront my paradox: the conviction of the dire need for humanitarian response to poverty alleviation and social injustice as in my life’s calling and mission, and yet also the conviction that the impact of what I do may never be enough to put the world right. And whenever I get to the end of that sentence, ‘every effort counts’ I always tell myself…and believe.

FIELD NOTES: My perspectives of Sri Lanka

Disclaimer: The recorded briefs are purely subjective thoughts and are heavily dependent on the senses and the emotional influence they have had on me (as well as the weather at the time). However, what I do guarantee is nothing but absolute sincerity in them, which at times may disturb those who look forward to literary appeal and artistic expression. I neither confess to nor promise either one. I write as my brain, heart and senses prompt me and so the recorded briefs are not chronological in order. Even so, time is not of the essence here.