Let’s Talk About Incest

*Reader discretion advised: This was a difficult post to write and does not make for a pleasant read. The title of the post is self-explanatory and if you are sensitive about reading related material, please close the tab now.

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Authorities in Sri Lanka are not particularly skilled in the art of making sensible statements to the press.

When I clicked on the twitter link this morning, I was confronted with this article on Daily Mirror Online.

The Police states that 1637 cases of rape were reported this year.

Emphasis on reported for posterity.

The article goes on to state: ‘SP Rohana said girls between the ages of 13 and 16 are especially vulnerable and are party to these cases… These underage girls should be taught about the consequences of their behaviour. Also the parents and their children should have a strong relationship, he added.’

What’s wrong with this picture?

I cannot help but wonder about all that goes unreported in this country. Not just rape.

And the authorities want 13-16 year old girls, victims of statutory rape, to take responsibility for their behaviour.

As a nation, we possess a remarkably short memory and more shockingly, a complacent silence that forms a shining veneer  of South Asian morality, which covers up every manner of sin we perpetrate, endure, or worse those when we encounter but ignore or look the other way. When it comes to education, we push for children to become doctors but never push for them to be educated in matters of health science that possess very real and important sway over their life decisions and more importantly, abusive relationships that exploit their circumstances and ignorance.

I do not wish to dwell on laws and definitions of rape or incest, but rather recount a couple of incidents I encountered. Unreported incidents.

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A few years ago, when I was researching labour in Sri Lankan plantations, I sort of unintentionally got mixed up in somewhat of a chase.

As part of my routine, I spent much of my day with the plantation’s welfare officer. Malar* was only a few years older than I was and her job was to mediate between the residents of the plantation and the management.Healthcare issues featured very prominently in her tasks and she liaises with the clinics, dispensaries and the matronly Mrs. Selladurai who had been an estate mid-wife for over two decades.

One particularly warm day in August 2009 just before I finished up my research, Malar, the plantation’s elderly mid-wife and I spent the better part of a day trying to track down the whereabouts of a pregnant 15 year old girl who had been compelled into an incestuous sexual relationship with her father.

I am horrified to hear that this is not uncommon. Frequently occurring in homes where mothers are absent (often those who have migrated to the Middle-East or Colombo and its peripheries as domestic workers), I am also told harrowing stories of mothers who choose to ignore what goes on in their homes. The reasons for their deliberate turning away remains unclear, but is often linked to alcoholism and domestic violence.

I am extremely disturbed by the number of stories Malar, Mrs. Selladurai and the dispensary’s pharmacist Uma share with me.  The specifics of their recollections are difficult to pen down, even now. Forced incest. Older brothers and younger sisters. Daughters giving birth to biological siblings. Silent mothers. Women being violently forbidden to use contraception by husbands and relatives. Abuse and rape by fathers and brothers in-law. Alcoholism. Suicide. Murder, suicide.

The women are so matter-of-fact about this grotesque local reality. My head spins.

We trudge on winding mountainside paths trying to find this 15 year old girl. We even go to her school. She has skipped the examinations that were happening that day. Her house is empty. Her father is gruff, uninterested and does not want to speak to anyone. The neighbours cradle their faces in their palms and whisper knowingly.

By mid-afternoon we have not yet found her and the mid-wife, both tired and angry calls it a day.

‘I will go in the night and catch her. She is just hiding from me. She doesn’t want to admit that she’s pregnant! ‘ I never found out if  Mrs. Selladurai found her. 

I was naive in thinking that my encounter with such ugliness was at a close. Some days later, Uma and I are off on another welfare visit. On a lonely road, we see a boy no more than 12 with two younger girls skulking in the terraces. The boy disappears into the tea bushes and the girls emerge wordlessly.

Uma goes into a veritable rage. She screams at the boy, demanding that he comes out and face her. She chases the girls angrily.

I am bewildered.

“That boy is a dirty boy. Look at him- only 12 years old. The girls 8 and 10.’ She continues to chase him. ‘GO HOME! Have you no shame!’ She picks up a stick, as if to chase a stray dog. A threat.

That boy is from a bad family, she confides in me as we watch them disappear down the hill. He keeps looking back sheepishly. ‘See these people live in such close quarters. This boy has been caught before doing things to his sister and cousin, things that adults do- they see and they try to imitate.’

She does not need to explain further. Bile rises to my throat and I feel like retching.

8, 10, 12.

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Yes, these girls should be taught. Not simply the consequences of their behaviour.

* Names changed.

P.S. : Sri Lanka’s Campaign for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence culminated successfully with a series of excellent contributions that deliberate different facets of gender-based violence in Sri Lanka and the launch of a very useful website with multiple resources that deal with violence against women and more importantly what you can do about it: http://www.actnowsrilanka.org/en/.

“They tell me you’ve been listening to women’s problems.”

November 25^th marked the International Day against Violence against Women and the interlinked 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign highlights the need for creating awareness on gender-based violence.  More on the Women and Media Collective’s Sri Lankan campaign can be found here:
http://srilanka16days.wordpress.com/

Here’s my contribution. Mostly because a few years ago when I was researching labour relations on a tea plantation in Bogawantalawa, the women workers thought I was there to ‘listen to women’s problems’. The incident that ensues remained confined within the pages of an undergraduate dissertation, but 2 years later, I feel like I owe it to She who shall remain unnamed, to make sure that others hear her story and act against violence against women.

The following is a loosely adapted section from an unpublished Social Anthropology dissertation entitled ‘An Alternative View of Plantation Patriarchy: A Study of Labour Relations among Indian-Origin Tamil Workers on a Sri Lankan Tea Plantation’

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“They tell me you’ve been listening to women’s problems.”

“Are you the one listening to the women’s problems?” She is small, and crooked from the weight of the fraying fertilizer sack full of leaves she has grown accustomed to carrying each day. I am startled, unsure as to how I should respond. I have spent a couple of weeks engaged in Malar’s welfare visits, familiarising myself with the winding paths and sunburnt faces. I have not met her before.

“They tell me you’ve been listening to women’s problems.” She repeats anxiously. I nod. “Don’t write down my name. Don’t tell anyone.”

Now, I am intrigued but am unsure as to what she thinks my role is. “When he drinks he changes. He breaks my head, my arms and legs. When he leaves, he is fine but when he comes back… I have taken on all the responsibilities of the man of the house. My four children work as domestic helpers in Colombo. You must do something to stop the sale of alcohol in the lines.”

I am bewildered. She plucks at the hedge we are standing against, crushing the leaves between her green-stained fingers. A nervous memory that rests only in her hands after the hours spent plucking kolanda (tea leaf).

“Will you tell them about how the women here suffer? Please do not write my name. Women suffer in the field and the house. We do not even have the freedom to eat. There are other women selling alcohol in the lines, they do not see our pain. If they do not sell alcohol in the lines, our men will not drink. They will not go into Tientsin to buy alcohol because they are afraid of the police. Can you bring the police?”

Uncertain as to what to say, I tell her that I am only researching gendered labour.

She asks me what the point is if I am not going to do anything about the women’s problems. “When I tell people my troubles, they carry tales to my husband so I get beaten. Why can’t you do something? Today is advance day and the money lender will collect my salary because when my husband takes a loan it is I who end up paying.” As other women begin to filter in, she leaves abruptly not wanting to be seen speaking to me.

Incidents related to alcoholism and interlinked domestic violence, are frequent. While some gruesome episodes involved young women being molested by drunken husbands, others were horrific instances of forced incestuous rape. Known through the euphemism thanni podarda (drinking water), alcohol is a menacing agent in the relationship between sexes.

Women anticipate that the management will enforce an alcohol ban, as alcoholism adds an ominous layer to the gender inequity manifesting as a prop for domestic violence. It also plays a mediatory role in men’s social engagements.

Selladorai, an older labourer tells me “It’s like refusing a meal. If you invite me to have a meal with you, and I refuse, it looks ugly on you and me both. So we will eat together. It is the same when it comes to drinking together.”

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Male and female alcoholism in Sri Lanka’s plantations, hand in hand with the brewing of illegal liquor has become a grave problem that goes terribly unnoticed. This post isn’t by any measure an outcry against the vices of alcoholism, but to highlight that its ominous role in fuelling domestic violence must not be underplayed, particularly in the case of abuse and violence against women in the private sphere of the home.

I suppose the gravest predicament is not the lack of awareness or the evils of alcohol abuse, but the resonating silence and implicit acceptance that it is in the nature of men or worse, part and parcel of being a woman.

Say something. Do something, today.