Aspectos conceptuales sobre la parálisis cerebral
2. Integración laboral
Saila’s interview reveals that Saila was a war widow with no male support from her entire family. She lost her grandfather to the Sri Lankan Army, her father to the Indian Army and her husband to the Sri Lankan Navy. Saila said she is the eldest in the family with two siblings. Her family became poor after the death of her father. Her grandfather, who was supporting her family after the death of her father, was also killed in a few months. The constant deaths of the breadwinners left Saila’s family in poverty. Saila was married at the age of seventeen with an expectation that her (future) husband would take care of her poor family. However, she lost her husband in the war, which she never expected to happen. Saila said she was told by the eyewitnesses that her husband was arrested by the navy while he was fishing. She believed that he was alive until she saw his mutilated body off the shore. According to Saila, her husband was first arrested by the navy and was killed later.
But how do I know my husband would also be killed so soon? The man went for fishing and never returned home. Eyewitnesses said that he was arrested by the navy on the sea. Believing that, I walked and talked to each and every military camp in the peninsula for nearly six months. They even told me he would be released soon. I believed them until I found his mutilated body off the shore (Interview 28, April 4, 2005).
Saila’s interview reveals that Saila was 19 when she heard the news of her husband’s demise. She went into a state of trauma for five years. Her mother, whose husband was also killed in the war, raised Saila’s daughter, who was one year old at that time. After having been approached by Shanthigam,45 Saila came to lead a normal life and was determined to take on the leadership position of the Tharaka Centre for Widows’ Activities in 2002. She was, at that time, 26 years old.
The members of the Tharaka Centre for Widows’ Activities stated that they are impressed by Saila’s work and Saila was carrying out impressive efforts
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towards the peacebuilding by being the president of this association. The main peacebuilding program that Saila was engaged in was said to have been the ‘reconciliation exchange’ with the women from the other ethnic communities. In order to convey peace messages to all ethnic groups in the country, Saila revealed that she traveled to almost all the places in Sri Lanka, met various women organizations and civil society members, and canvassed to build up a sustainable peace in the country. Moreover, Saila had an affiliation with other war widows who were from other ethnic groups as well. According to the interview with her, Saila had a good correspondence with Sinhala and Muslim women, because Saila’s motive was to build an understanding between different ethnic communities in the nation.
Earlier we hated the Sinhalese, thinking that their sons and husbands in the Sri Lankan Navy shot our husbands. As we began the reconciliation exchanges, we realized that the pain and the familial loss were felt on both sides. We understand how terrible war is and we want peace (Interview 28, April 4, 2005).
Initiating nationwide peace had become one of life ambitions of Saila and the other women working with her for peace.
As mothers, we are fearful for the security and future of our children. We are worried that the conflict may affect the development of our children. We believe in producing a generation that espouses cherishing love, peace, and justice. We, therefore, joined hands with other mothers. We know this work will be a challenge but we like to face challenges (Interview 28, April 4, 2005).
Saila further added:
If peace is within us, it will eventually radiate to others. In this regard, mothers from south and east of Sri Lanka are being very supportive and cooperative, which gives us hopes that peace will soon prevail (Interview 28, April 4, 2005).
In my observation as a researcher, both Saila and Lalitha displayed a well- developed consciousness for making peace. These two cases in fact appeared to be a rich source of skills, insight and energy for the process of peacebuilding. As some of my respondents in a focus group interviewed claimed:
Earlier, women's roles in making peace were confined within the family. Reaching peace between villages, and between nations has been the responsibility of men. But through our peace work, the consciousness that women can also make peace is very well established. Therefore, we re-established a society in which women take up the responsibility of reaching peace between the people and between the communities (FGI 04, December 6, 2005).
The women of Jaffna claimed that the peacebuilding process empowered women to some extent. Moreover, the initiatives of women towards building peace had contributed to reconstructing the society that could attain rights through peace and not through violence. However, the women also pointed out that women seeking peace of course pay a high price to attain it. To make peace, one must be an uncompromising individual; one must embody compromise and one must make ultimate personal sacrifice.
For women peacemakers, the obstacles are greater, the demands are greater, the barriers are greater, and the double standards are more pronounced as well. Despite of all these things, we continue our peace work, and the nation benefits a lot from us and through our peace work as well. In general, work for peace is an immense contribution to reconstructing a healthy and peaceful society (FGI 04, December 6, 2005).
8.5 Conclusions
The objective of this chapter was to present the empirical material related to how Tamil women of Jaffna district experience and understand their roles as peacebuilders in times of conflict and ceasefire agreement of Sri Lanka. According to the narrative accounted by women peacebuilders in this chapter, like political activists, the role of peacebuilders was also adopted by women in time of the ceasefire agreement. It appears that these women peacebuilders have engaged in peace work due to the atrocity caused by the war. Most of the peace women of Jaffna that they stated in their interviews are women from the grassroots level, and affected by war. Therefore, the only motive for women to take up the role of peacebuilders that they stated was to put an end to war and bring back the peace.
These women’s narratives as given in the chapter have also disclosed the challenges they faced on the mission to build peace. Considering their explanations given in the narratives, it seems that these women had to depend on the funding agency to carry out their activities. Therefore these women, the peacebuilders were not so independent to work for peace. Moreover, the narratives indicate that most of the peace women were single parents that they had to spare their time between peace work and domestic responsibilities. Managing with time and space between these two responsibilities has been a big challenge for a peace woman to carry out peace activities.
As per the empirical evidence provided in this chapter, women peacebuilders have engaged in many peace-related activities. They engaged in initiating peace between the communities divided by the war; they have not only organized peace rallies and workshops, but have engaged in the program of reconciliation exchange as well. Nevertheless, the respondents’ narrations indicate that women benefitted
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some individual developments through peacebuilding. Due to their networking and collaboration with NGOs, women had opportunities to travel around, they received leadership training and some employment opportunities.
As explored in the chapter, women peacebuilders’ efforts to build peace not only initiated peace within and between communities, but empowered women as well. Women were given exposure to various cultures and languages, they have developed their leadership skills, and have become better negotiators and communicators. Therefore, women peacebuilders in Jaffna claim that they have contributed to the ‘reconstruction’ of the society in which women are not submissive anymore, but are empowered.
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Conclusions
I specified in chapter one that the present study contains the narratives of Tamil women in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, and was guided by its research question more than its theoretical framework. The motive for using the research question was to enable me to connect the collected data with the study’s conceptual framework. The need to explore this problem was motivated by the need for exploring the unheard voices of Tamil women of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. This study adopted various methods to collect the field data on the phenomenon, and thus the results arising from interview, focus group interviews and observations make up this study. What I do in this chapter is fourfold: first, I bring together the summary and findings of the study. Secondly, I discuss the empirical and theoretical implications of the study. Thirdly the remaining problems of the study are elaborated and finally, the prospects for future research are discussed.