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Parents and guardians of missing people protest opposite Justice Ministry.

A young mother participating in these demonstrations said the Security Forces took her husband into custody during the round up in Jaffna in 1996. Ever since his arrest the young wife has been going all over the country in search of her husband and visiting every offices of authority she considered responsible and answerable in respect of the Security Forces in Jaffna. She had high hopes the Army Officers would serve for the return of her grievance and thereby redress her husband. In course of time she got frustrated and became desperate about it.

Further she sought the assistance of the Human Rights Organizations, various international Organizations, Sri Lankan Members of Parliament, and Ministers of the State and the Presidential Secretariat. Long at last she received a letter from the Presidential Secretariat only to say that they could not find out anything of her husband when they tried to trace for him. She was only 22 years and had a breastfed baby when her husband was apprehended and taken into custody. She had to undergo several economic hardships since his arrest. Her parents have been looking after her and her baby. She even now believes her husband is still alive and she is hopeful that he would return. It is only in that ever springing hope that she participates in agitation. Although there were many younger women and guardians of similar plight and associated with her in the membership, only fifty-two of them could board the bus that brought them to Colombo.

30 December 2003

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