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Reconciling Truth and Gender Lessons for Sri Lanka

Author : Baker, Jo

Acc. No: 1013-S

Category: Soft Documents

Subjects: Post-Conflict Development

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Truth-telling mechanisms have consistently been shown to take on and perpetuate the gender-biases of their contexts, in breach of international standards on non-discrimination. In exploring the scope of State-led and condoned discrimination towards Sri Lanka's largest group of war-affected survivors, Tamil women in the North and East of the country, this paper aims to highlight the need for gender sensitive truth commissioning following the conflict, and to assess key legal and practical obstacles, in reference to the international legal framework on non-discrimination. Drawing on critiques of Sri Lanka's past and current Commissions of Inquiry, and on best practice, it then briefly proposes ways to place Tamil women more centrally, and therefore legally, within the transitional narrative. Source: Reconciling Truth and Gender: Lessons for Sri Lanka