The Sri Lankan military has denied “in the strongest terms” allegations by the Minority Rights Group (MRG) and the Human Rights Watch (HRW) that sexual violence by its troops has been causing insecurity among women in the northern and eastern Provinces.
Military spokesman Brig Ruwan Wanigasooriya told the media on Friday that a study of incidents of sexual offences which had occurred in the North between January 2007 and May 2012 had revealed that during the conflict period seven Security Forces personnel were reported as being invo-lved in five incidents of sexual violence in the north.
“This was out of a total of 125 persons accused in 119 incidents in the entire Northern Province,” Wanigasooriya pointed out.
“In a majority of cases, the perpetrators had been close relatives or neighbours of the victim and had been of Tamil ethnicity,” the spokesman contended. – Express News
