But even this review, does not note the minority dimension to the crisis.
15. When minorities are affected by a crisis, the effect of it has on them, the targeted
nature of the violations must be explicitly identified by all actors, especially
international agencies, responding to the crisis.
16. As called for in the draft recommendations minorities need to be effectively involved and
participating in decision making at all levels of responding to the crisis. I would argue
though that this is not enough, in addition, governments and international agencies need
to adopt a minority rights approach to responding to a crisis.
17. In Sri Lanka for instance, The UNHCR and some other agencies when dealing with the
crisis came up with the terms ‘new IDPs’ and ‘old IDPs’ the latter refers to Muslims and
other displaced during the course conflict who were deprioritised in return and
resettlement. This differentiation caused injustice and continues to raise tensions
amongst groups. A minority rights approach would have avoided these problems.
18. Such an approach must also recognise the multiple and intersectional discrimination in a
humanitarian crisis.
19. The UN reports on Sri Lanka have recorded evidence of sexual violence, including rape
and torture, perpetrated during the humanitarian crisis, by the SL military on Tamil
women, especially former combatants. The dehumanising nature of the torture and
violations against women was intrinsically linked to their ethnic and gender identity as
Tamil women.
20. Women will also be disproportionately affected in a crisis; women have told me of great
risks they took to queue to get food for their children even in the knowledge that such
spaces were targeted for attacks.
21. Tamil and Muslim women have said they regrettably married their daughters at a very
young age as a means of protection. I have found that domestic violence rates are high
for many of these women who had early marriages.
22. Minority groups also face cultural and religious rights violations in humanitarian crisis
that go amiss. Muslim women, I have interviewed, spoke of the great difficulty they
faced in displaced camps to maintain their socio-cultural norms, including specific forms