(ANS – Negombo) – About 40% of the children caught up in the conflict were girls. Yet there is hardly any talk about girl-soldiers. Like the boy-soldiers and probably more, these victims need support even after the conflict is over. In Sri Lanka, the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians are taking care of them.

Their life is very hard and they have many different roles. When very small, as soon as they are captured, they act as maids to the soldiers, cook and collect provisions and as soon as they reach puberty, they are forced to marry the head of the guerrillas. Others are enslaved by the soldiers who abuse them and others again fulfil an active role in the guerrilla warfare, fighting, acting as spies and becoming informers.

The problems for these young women do not finish with the end of the war. Anything but. When they return to their villages, these girls, often accompanied by their children, are ostracised because of the violence they have suffered. They have notable psychological and physical problems.

In Sri Lanka the country has been torn apart by a civil war lasting 25 years. It began in 1983 and finished in 2009 and generated almost 280,000 refugees, the majority of whom are young. “«Once the conflict ended, states Sr. Maryann Fernando animator of the Mary Help of Christians House at Negombo in the south of Sri Lanka – the government looked desperately for some non-government organisation to rehabilitate and take care of them Punitha Nayagam, a lawyer and leader of Vavuniya, and his friend Alexander, a magistrate, contacted Church leaders asking them to open a house, so that the children orphaned by the war could be taken care of and rehabilitated. And we accepted. »

On various occasions the FMA were being pressed to take in certain girls but they insisted on keeping their own autonomy and respecting their charism: “In the beginning, they asked us to make some changes to the admission system…. They absolutely wanted us to take care of the girls that they entrusted to us, but we decided to accept the most vulnerable girls, those who were really poor and marginalised. We also set up a short stay house where the children who could not find their parents lived until their own family came to get them».

At Vavuniya, a place often the theatre of operations between the Government forces and the Tamil Tigers, the FMA run the “House for girl soldiers and ex-soldiers”  which houses  173 girls. Of these, 77 attend between the 6th and 8th classes and 80 are orphans. The youngest is 3 years and is in the kindergarten. One girl is studying at university, 20 are following professional courses and 2 a course in physiotherapy. Ten of the older ones are working.

«The progress of the girls at school has suffered a lot because of the war and there is a tutor system in operation for all of them….., the trauma undergone during the war has left indelible marks: many suffer from psychological difficulties linked to depression. Others have badly treated war wounds, which they have borne for years».

The initiative of the FMA is directed towards supporting their physical and psychological health, education and spiritual formation. They are also in active collaboration with other non-governmental organisations like the International Red Cross, Unicef and the World Food Program and national ones like SHADE and SEED, Social Economical and Environmental Developers, who collaborate weekly with the Don Bosco Children's home.
The experience of the FMA in Sri Lanka was presented by Sr Mary Ann Fernando at the recent Salesian Family Spiritualit Days.

Published 22/02/2012