The burden of war widows: gendered consequences of war and peace-building in Sri Lanka

Abstract Research shows that war affects various groups of survivors differently, yet the severe consequences faced by war widows are often overlooked. Combining insights from fieldwork in Sri Lanka with secondary sources, we conclude that the time is ripe for the daunting challenges of war widows to be brought into the limelight. We argue that widowhood after war is conditioned both by the post-war context and society’s gendered constructions. The social expectations that follow pose exceptional trials in everyday life for war widows globally. As an important case and illustrative example, we analyse Sri Lanka: a decade ago emerging from civil war; today, in dire need of economic and political transformation. We demonstrate how war widows are caught in the crossfire of demographic change, post-war insecurities, economic hardship, and gender discriminating norms and traditions. This unseen group of survivors play a critical role for the prospects for economic, social and political development in the transition from war to peace, in Sri Lanka and beyond. We conclude by calling for a concerted effort wherein research and policy come together to outline a new research and policy agenda with the aim of lessening the burden of war widows.


Introduction
While conducting field work in Sri Lanka during the years 2015-2018, for other projects and purposes, we discovered an unexpected recurring theme: the plight of war widows.Again and again, in meetings and interviews -with more than 100 individuals -on peacebuilding with representatives from women's organisations and local NGOs, but also with senior political officials, academics, analysts and community members, the predicaments of war widows were raised.Although widely known in the 'field' and relevant literatures acknowledge its significance, the unique difficulties war widows face receives little attention in contemporary research on war and peace.
The gendered consequences of war are well-documented by peace scholars (Buckley-Zistel and Stanley 2012;Sjoberg 2013;Björkdahl and Selimovic 2015).For instance, research shows that the long-lasting physical and psychological health problems of war affect women disproportionately due to societal changes that discriminate against women's health (by ignorance or neglect), gendered norms, or simply by a war-shattered infrastructure that hit hard on, for example, maternal health (Plümper and Neumayer 2006;Brounéus 2014Brounéus , 2019;;Kellezi and Reicher 2014;Kotsadam and Østby 2019).
due to the gendered conditions of war, the majority of military and civilian casualties are men, creating a striking gender imbalance among survivors, and leaving a large number of women widowed by the war (Hynes 2004;Owen 2011).While reliable documentation is scarce, existing information suggests that the number of widows in post-war 1 settings is significantly higher than the global average, and consists of a much larger share of younger women (united Nations 2001;Brück and Schindler 2009).Commonly the sole providers of their families, these war widows are imperative not only for immediate humanitarian reasons, but also for the prospects of sustainable economic, social and political development in transitions from war to peace.Not least, war widows navigate challenging social norms and raise children who will grow up and meet the world with raised fists or with kindness and compassion (Bjarnegård, Brounéus, and Melander 2021).
in this article, we articulate some of the exceptional challenges that war widows face in post-war recovery and peacebuilding; challenges we believe urgently need to be brought in, front and centre, to the peace research agenda, and international peace-building community.We align with feminist scholarship in arguing that that the consequence of being a widow after war is conditioned both by post-war realities and by society's gendered constructions of womanhood and widowhood (Blackburn 2010;Qutab 2012;Lenette 2014).We analyse the case of Sri Lanka as an important and illustrative example. in 2009, the country began to emerge from a near 30-year civil war; today, it is slowly recovering from the near economic and political collapse unfolding in 2022.Through the case of Sri Lanka, we exemplify the impact of war on widowhood -variations of which we have seen in other post-war settings globally.By engaging with existing scholarship on war widows in parallel with a reading of our Sri Lanka material, we identify and describe five overarching challenges facing war widows: livelihood, stigma, activism, exploitation and trauma.Existing works tend to probe one trial at a time (such as barriers to livelihood or political widowhood), rather than recognising that predicaments can be both multi-fold, bundled and shaped by each post-war context.Moreover, previous research typically analyses war widows as part of the broader group of female-headed households, or widows writ large.yet, war widows constitute a core group of survivors in post-war societies.Commonly the sole providers of their families, their fate is of concern due to the important role they play in the prospects for economic, social and political development in transitions from war to peace.Failing to see war widows as a discrete group hampers our ability to both identify and remedy the barriers they face.
We move the understanding of war widows forward by uncovering how the predicaments of Sri Lankan war widows are bundled, being shaped by both the war experience itself and by gender norms.Constraints arising from gender norms are compounded by the war: the war widows find themselves in the crossline of challenges arising both from demographic changes, persistent post-war insecurities and economic hardship, as well as from culture and tradition.
The Sri Lankan war, particularly the case of the LTTE fighters, is often used to discuss women as agents of political violence, as relatively many women fighters participated in the LTTE.Here we turn the spotlight to a different cohort of women: those who were widowed by the war.These women -as all people everywhere -will have a multitude of roles, responsibilities, and identities.Some war widows will be former fighters, most will not.Here, we are investigating the specific challenges faced by women after war when the common denominator is widowhood.By unravelling these 'broader gender harms' (Aroussi 2017, 500) of widows in and after war, we are not attempting to propagate for gender essentialism nor lump individuals together.Our aim is to identify and describe the challenges that are commonly experienced by a large number of war widows, with the intention of bringing greater visibility to the difficulties they face.
This article proceeds as follows.We begin by conceptualising who a war widow is, before studying war widowhood in the context of Sri Lanka.After a brief background to the war, peace-building process, and our empirical and methodological approach, we investigate how Sri Lankan war widows are influenced by gender norms and post-war realities, drawing also on findings from other post-conflict settings.Based on this inductive, iterative analysis, we group the overarching challenges facing war widows into five categories (Livelihood; Stigma; Activism; Exploitation; Trauma).The article ends by outlining an agenda for how these vicious circles of war widowhood might be broken, calling the concerned communities of scholars, policymakers and practitioners to act for empowerment and change.

Who is a war widow?
We conceptualise war widows as a distinct, but not unitary, group of survivors during war and in post-war contexts.We are concerned with how the experience of widowhood resulting from the war experience and the circumstances brought about by war has implications for our understanding of the term 'war widow.' in its most straightforward meaning, a war widow is a woman whose spouse has died as a direct consequence of war. in a Western and state-centric conception, war widows are 'the spouses of servicemen killed in action' (Blackburn 2010, 63).However, 'servicemen' usually entails state-based military actors.So, to adapt to the context of civil war, we extend the concept of 'war widows' to include also widows of spouses killed in military campaigns by non-state groups (rebel groups, guerrillas etc.), and widows of civilian casualties. in contrast to widows more generally, war widows as a group includes a large proportion of young women (Blackburn 2010).
Next, the literature often differentiates between de jure and de facto widows in developing countries (Rousseau 1987;Chant 1997;Ramnarain 2016).This is a distinction of importance for war widows as well.De jure war widows can legally claim widowhood as their husband's dead body has been found, killed in the war. in instances where the body has not been recovered, and in the absence of death certificates, wives of the missing remain de facto widows with important ramifications for post-war life.For instance, de jure widowhood is often associated with certain benefits, for example compensation and/or pensions, whereas de facto widows are excluded from such assistance. 2 Last, in line with feminist scholarship we argue that that the condition of war widows is shaped by two dimensions: gender norms and the post-war environment (Blackburn 2010).Not only does war prescribe differential gender roles across the globe (Sjoberg 2013), most societies uphold strong, gendered norms of how widows should act, behave, dress, participate in -or be excluded from -social life (yuval-davis 1997).Jointly, the gendered norms of war and widowhood influence what is possible and socially acceptable for a war widow.
The Sri Lankan case and our methodological approach Sri Lanka's civil war  was rooted in two competing forms of nationalism, where the Tamil minority -due to post-independence marginalisation and discrimination -demanded a Tamil homeland in the north and east of the country, while the Sinhalese-dominated government refused separation.After simmering tensions and violence, the conflict escalated into war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 1983.Several unsuccessful attempts were made to solve the conflict.The final years of the war saw an unprecedented intensification of the violence, with major atrocities committed by both sides.The war came to an end in 2009, when the Sri Lankan government defeated and annihilated the LTTE.
Post-war recovery has been marked by a 'victor's peace, ' shaped by the asymmetrical power relations between the Sinhalese-dominated nationalist government and the Tamil minority.Post-war governments have become increasingly nationalist and authoritarian, militarisation has persisted and efforts to promote reconciliation and justice resisted.in 2022, a financial and political crisis erupted caused by the most severe economic crisis since independence in 1948.
The Sri Lankan war is often used to discuss women as agents of political violence, as unusually many women fighters participated in the LTTE. in this article, however, we turn to those who were widowed by the war, whether being former combatants or civilians.The war left a large number of widows, including the wives of those still missing.Several sources place estimates at around 90,000 de jure war widows in the north and east of Sri Lanka (Sajanthan, et al. 2014;iCG 2017, 7).These figures discount the de facto war widows whose husbands remain missing (Sajanthan, et al. 2014;iCG 2017). in a study by Gunatilaka and Vithanagama (2018, 41), 68% of the female-headed households surveyed in the Northern Province were headed by widows. 3There are several sub-groups of war widows after the Sri Lankan war: widows of fallen LTTE cadres and of servicemen of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces; widows of civilian casualties (mainly in the northeast); widows of casualties from the 1983 riots.Given the ethnic nature of the conflict, most war widows are Tamil or Sinhalese.But since many Muslims reside in the conflict-ridden eastern parts of the country, there are also many Muslim war widows.
in addition to being shaped by the post-war context in Sri Lanka, war widows are also impacted by gender norms.Legal rights afforded to women vary across the multiple parallel legal systems, often referred to as 'personal laws, ' that apply to specific geographic areas or ethnic groups in Sri Lanka (Gomez 2008).While Sri Lanka is often cited as having comparatively broader legal rights and later marriage age than neighbouring countries, under Muslim personal law the age of marriage is very young and the husband maintains greater legal control over the wife (Gomez 2008).Also, some of Sri Lanka's communities are matrilineal by tradition, particularly amongst Tamil and Muslim communities in the Eastern Province.However, as Ruwanpura (2006) observes, many matrilineal households remain trapped in patriarchal structures.Religious and cultural practices regarding widows also differ across ethnic communities.For example, remarriage is common for Muslim widows, but has been traditionally discouraged for Tamil Hindu widows (Blackburn 2010).And while women in general are underrepresented in the workforce across all communities in Sri Lanka, Muslim women face even greater cultural limitations on activities outside of the home, creating additional economic barriers for Muslim war widows (Ruwanpura and Humphries 2003;Hyndman 2008).

Research setting and method
This article grew out of conversations about interviews we had conducted in Sri Lanka for our two research projects Gender, War-trauma and Peacebuilding and Gender-Just Peace and Transitional Justice, in 2015, 2016, 2017and 2018.We realised that one common theme was emerging strongly in both our projects: the exceptional plight of war widows.Our interviews and focus groups -more than 60 in total and with more than 100 individuals -were conducted primarily with representatives from women's organisations and local NGOs working with peacebuilding, psycho-social issues and mental health, but also with senior political officials, academics, analysts and community members with relevant experiences, and war widows.A list of all interviews and focus groups is included as supplementary material.Many of the interviewees spoke directly about the experiences of war widows and are cited in the article, while other interviews were important for contextualising women's roles in post-war Sri Lanka more broadly.For reasons of safety and integrity of the research participants in a context of repeated political turmoil, we have pseudonymised all interviews.
Both projects were guided by continuous ethical reflection before, during and after fieldwork (Brounéus, Bhattarai, and Forsberg 2022) in close and continuous dialogue with local partners, and through ethics reviews (in Sweden: Swedish Ethical Review Authority, dnr 2016/552; in Sri Lanka: university of Colombo and local authorities in the research locations).interviews were held at a location where our participants felt comfortable, and under the condition of informed consent.Our interviewees were also informed that they could stop and withdraw from the interview at any time; by giving this control to the interviewee, the risk of emotional distress can be decreased (Wood 2006;Brounéus 2011).interviews were also carefully designed to avoid doing harm, for example, by not asking of or going into traumatic events or memories, and -if the interviewee began diving deeper into such memories -cautiously steering back to questions of lesser emotional charge.
in this article, we also draw on available secondary sources: reports, academic studies, and testimonies by widows.We consulted these sources while analysing our interview material; this inductive, iterative process, helped us chisel out the particular challenges facing war widows in both Sri Lanka and other post-conflict settings.in this way, five categories of challenges emerged -an analytical framework of sorts -which will now be presented.

War widows in Sri Lanka and beyond
Globally, war widows in post-conflict settings face striking difficulties.Based on our accumulated work in Sri Lanka during 2015-2018 and our survey of secondary sources as outlined above, we group these challenges in a framework consisting of five overarching categories: challenges related to livelihood and land; stigma and blame; political engagement and activism; sexual exploitation and harassment; and trauma and grief.

Livelihood and land
Several studies have highlighted livelihood challenges for widows after war, including barriers to employment and income-generating opportunities.These barriers include lack of education, training, or capital to start a business, stigma against the employment of women, as well as competing responsibilities, like caring for children and other family members (united Nations 2001;Brück and Vothknecht 2011;Chant 1997).When widows find employment, many take up jobs that upset traditional gender norms as they are considered 'unsuitable' for women (Blackburn 2010;Menon and van der Meulen Rodgers 2015;Ramnarain 2016).Relatedly, land is an important area of contestation for war widows across the world.This is often due to insecure property rights, which creates difficulties to access the necessary legal documents that would help claim land and property, as observed, for example, in Nepal (Sabri et al. 2016;Ramnarain 2016).
These predicaments apply to Sri Lanka too: war widows of all communities face difficult livelihood challenges; indeed, for many war widows in the heavily war-affected Northern Province, the situation is dire.Much of this predicament stems from strong patriarchal norms, dictating that it is not socially acceptable for women to engage in wage labour (interview 2018-11).Caste and gender stereotypes indeed limit labour options for women in the whole country (Hewamanne 2018;Hyndman and de Alwis 2003;Ruwanpura 2008).To illustrate, Sri Lanka has the lowest women labour force participation rates in South Asia (Sarvananthan 2015;Sarvananthan, Suresh, and Alagarajah 2017).So, being alone, war widows are placed in a precarious dilemma: challenging strong norms of what a 'good' woman should do, or not having an income for herself and her family.
Further, while laws of property and inheritance as well as dowry practices differ across the ethnic communities in Sri Lanka, they all have severely limiting effects on women.Through the dowry system, the woman's property is transferred to the husband.if he dies, the property goes to the children.if there are no children, the property will go to the husband's family, not to the wife (interview 2017-9). in this way, land ownership is consistently withheld from women. in addition, these gender-biased norms are codified in Sri Lankan law, for example in the land law, which gives precedence to male heirs over female heirs, and according to which a woman can be ousted from cultivating her land if there is a male heir (Pinto-Jayawardena and de Almeida Guneratne 2010).
The post-war environment aggravates these challenges.Many widows in Sri Lanka lost their documents of land ownership during the war (interview 2017-3).At times, this was further complicated by not obtaining death certificates (de Mel and Kodikara 2018).Not having the required documents impedes the legal process of transferring property rights.But there are also cases where such documents never existed: land would simply be inherited in a patrilineal practice, the widow excluded by virtue of being a woman (interview 2017-7).To this end, some war widows did contemplate remarriage for security reasons, although this is rare in Sri Lanka and discouraged among Sinhalese and Tamil communities.in the Tamil community, the option of remarriage is further impeded by the shortage of men -a grim demographic imbalance caused by the war.dowry requirements are another common practical obstacle to remarriage -many widows do not have the resources required.Among the Muslim community, however, levirate marriage (whereby the deceased man's brother marries the widow) does exist.
As far as we can conclude from existing data sources, most war widows in the north and east of the country do not receive widow pension. 4Widows of Sri Lankan military servicemen are entitled to widow pensions but encounter livelihood constraints in a less visible form: in-laws can demand to have the state-paid pension of a dead son transferred to them rather than to the widow (interview 2017-12), possibly -but not always -giving the widow just enough to survive (interview 2017-2).Furthermore, the military widow pension opens other modes of vulnerability and exploitation.While remarriage is rare and socially discouraged, our interviewees spoke of the hidden phenomenon that some men systematically seek marriage with military widows with the ulterior motive of obtaining her widow pension (interview 2017-2).The man would marry the widow, and after having the pension funds transferred to him (as head of the family's economy), leave the woman -oftentimes now with one or more (additional) children to care for, but with no pension (interview 2017-2).As these predicaments are less visible than the financial struggles of the Tamil war widows, NGOs often exclude military widows from their programs (interview 2017-2).

Stigma and blame
in many societies, widowhood is associated with social stigma and shame, stemming from social, cultural and religious practices.Often, such stigma is connected to patriarchal norms and victim-blaming attitudes, that legitimise and normalise the exclusion of and violence towards widows (Brück and Schindler 2009;Sabri et al. 2016;yadav 2016;Shahnazarian and Ziemer 2018).Without protection from family and social support systems, post-war life brings distinct physical, psychological and social vulnerabilities.Victim-blaming norms can make violence against widows socially acceptable; abuse is also seen within families due to, for example, inheritance disputes and blame (Sabri et al. 2016).Participation in post-war transitional justice processes, such as testifying in truth commissions or courts, have led to widows being stigmatised, harassed, and even killed (Brounéus 2008).
in Sri Lanka, widowhood means loss of social status, and war widows face blatant social stigma and shaming associated with gender norms (Samuel 2001;Rajasingham-Senanayake 2004;Orjuela 2010, 112).The wide-ranging negative beliefs about widows were emphasised throughout our interviews.Sinhalese and Tamil war widows are blamed for the death of the husbands and therefore seen as a bad omen by family and society (interviews 2017-3; 2017-4; 2017-14).Blame comes from the in-laws, who see the widow as responsible for the loss of their son (interviews 2017-2; 2017-3; 2017-9).This view is often transferred to the children, who begin believing their mother caused the death of their father.in addition, Sinhalese and Tamil war widows also face blame from themselves, due to karma (interviews 2017-3; 2017-4; 2017-14).The belief in karma, relevant to both Buddhist and Hindu traditions, leads many women to believe they must have done something evil in a past life to deserve their fate of losing a husband.Several spoke of how this self-blame and stigma from others also allows the widows little room for mourning (interview 2017-2).
Further, in Sri Lankan society, it is considered a bad omen to see a widow in the morning (interview 2017-2) or for a widow to attend weddings -including weddings of her own children (interview 2017-7; 2017-14).Horoscopes (important to many) say it is a bad omen for a husband to die, indirectly implying it may happen to the widow's next husband as well (interview 2017-3).How the husband died and who he was also affects the degree of stigma.The social marginalisation of Tamil war widows is particularly strong, especially for LTTE widows.it is considered dangerous to be associated with them, as this may lead to being targeted by the government (interview 2017-7).LTTE widows are also avoided and shunned due to resentment of the LTTE's maltreatment of the community, especially during the final phase of the war (interview 2017-2).
Two additional risk factors play in for LTTE widows.First, most are low caste, hence their marginalisation is intersectional.The caste system is more hierarchical among Tamil than among Sinhalese, with strong ramifications for all spheres of life: privately, socially, economically and politically (interviews 2015-14; 2017-2).Second, social stigma is conditioned by age.young widows tend to be more stigmatised than those who had been married for a long time -mostly due to karma (interview 2017-2).The LTTE forcefully recruited girls and boys during the war, but did not recruit those who were married.So, to protect their children, many parents in the Tamil areas married off their girls and boys at a young age.Hence, many of the LTTE widows were, and still are, young (interview 2017-7; see also Kodikara 2018, 17).
There are some physical markers of widowhood in Sri Lanka, such as the Hindu tradition requiring widows to remove their marriage jewellery and the pottu -a red dot worn on the forehead signifying marriage (interview 2017-14; Amirthalingam and Lakshman 2013; Blackburn 2010).However, these are not always applicable as many women in the North and Northeast may have lost or been forced to sell their jewellery during the many years of conflict and displacement (interviews 2017-3; 2017-7). in addition, many de facto widows continue to wear their jewellery and pottu for the societal security marriage-markers provide.This sometimes leads to contention, with others (including de jure widows) seeing this as deceiving and against tradition.indeed, in some cases, women who had kept their physical marriage markers could no longer be part of a widows' support group due to the tensions it created in the group (interview 2017-3).Nonetheless, with or without physical markers, everyone will know in the widow's own community.The power of social stigma surrounding widowhood thus comes both from the community, the family, and the widow herself.

Political engagement and activism
War widowhood takes on specific meanings in politics.Ramphele (1996) introduces the concept of 'political widowhood' , whereby the widows of fallen fighters in South Africa came to symbolically and publicly represent the larger political struggle (see also Zahedi 2006 for similar suggestions regarding iranian war widows; and Ben-Asher and Bokek-Cohen 2019 concerning israel).yet, political widows are simultaneously denied a private experience of grief and mourning, and are instead required to have a shared mourning experience (Ramphele 1996;Ben-Asher and Bokek-Cohen 2019).
in Sri Lanka, the political experiences of war widows differ significantly across segments of society, but the practice of political widowhood is present across the conflict divide and strongly influenced by existing gender norms.At the elite level, two women have held the position of Prime Minister or President of Sri Lanka -both of them widows (Rajasingham-Senanayake 2004).Sirimavo Bandaranaike took up a political career after her husband S.W.R.d.Bandaranaike was assassinated and Chandrika Kumaratunga (Bandaranaike's daughter) after the assassination of her husband Vijaya Kumaratunga. in 2013, Ananthi Sasitharan was the only woman to successfully contest the election (on behalf of the TNA alliance) for a seat in the Northern Provincial Council.She is the widow of Velayutham Sasitharan (alias Elilan), who was the political head of the LTTE in Trincomalee and who remains missing.Ananthi has become a controversial figure, partly for her association with the former insurgents, but also because she has been an advocate for women's issues and for demanding accountability and the truth about the missing from the war.For instance, in 2014 she testified during sessions of the uN Human Rights Council in Geneva (TamilNet 2014).
in Sri traditional gender norms dominate politics.Politics is generally associated with masculinity norms and considered a 'dirty business' -potentially a reason for the low participation of women in politics in Sri Lanka.A recent study shows that violence against political candidates -both women and men -is both prevalent and gendered in Sri Lanka: women are subjected to more sexualised forms of violence, both psychological and physical (Bjarnegård, Håkansson, and Zetterberg 2022). in our own work, politically engaged war widows expressed that their political work undermined their community's respect for them (interview 2015-13).Some were abused for running for political positions in local or national political bodies. in a study on Tamil women's post-war political participation, war widows spoke of similar challenges (Koens and Gunawardana 2021, 474-75).
As in many post-war settings, women at the grassroots and community level in Sri Lanka have organised to find information about missing relatives.Many are de facto widows and constitute a key force in this pursuit of post-war justice.However, according to our work, such activism can lead to harassment, either from the Criminal investigation department (Cid), who sees the women as insubordinate, or from family members.Women who have participated in public protest have reportedly been abused at home, by their families (interview 2015-1; 2015-16d).

Ongoing insecurities: sexual exploitation and harassment
War widows encounter prominent challenges of fear and insecurity. in addition to the victim-blaming attitudes mentioned above, where violence against widows becomes socially acceptable, abuse and threats against widows at the family-level arise due to, for example, inheritance disputes (Hynes 2004;Sabri et al. 2016).The disruption of family and social support systems, as well as the lack of basic needs such as secure housing, has been seen to exacerbate the vulnerable position of war widows in the wake of conflict in post-war settings from Cambodia to iraq to Rwanda to Timor Leste (Hynes 2004;Brounéus 2008;Blackburn 2010).
The on-going insecurities facing women in post-war Sri Lanka are well documented and involve domestic abuse as well as threats from outsiders (iCG 2011).Sexual exploitation and harassment of war widows is a critical problem (interviews 2017-3; 2017-7).Many Tamil war widows were captured by the Sri Lankan army forces at the end of the war, and held captive for varying lengths of time.As it is generally assumed that these widows were sexually abused during this time, people in their community see them as 'damaged' (interview 2017-7).Harassment and sexual exploitation of Tamil war widows has continued; they are harassed by the Cid and sexually abused by district government and the military (interview 2015-13; 2017-2; 2018-8), and former LTTE cadres are seen as particularly risky subjects and remain highly stigmatised (de Mel 2017; Gowrinathan and Cronin-Furman 2015).The threat of harassment by the security forces limits the possibilities for Northern Province women to seek work farther from home (interview 2015-17d) or participate in public life (Sarvananthan, Suresh, and Alagarajah 2017).due to significant livelihood constraints, some widows turn to prostitution as a strategy of economic survival (interviews 2015-17a; 2017-3).
Sexual exploitation also afflicts the Sri Lankan military war widows.Government officials have been known to demand sexual favours when the widow comes to receive her late husband's pension -exacerbating the social stigma (interviews 2017-1; 2017-4; 2017-14).
indeed, war widows in Sri are so associated with sexual exploitation, that even married women may face guilt by association if seen in their company (interview 2017-8).

Trauma and grief
The gendered consequences of war also spill over into peace.For instance, research demonstrates that the long-lasting physical and psychological health problems of war affect women disproportionately, due to gender discriminatory norms and war-shattered infrastructure which often hit hard on areas such as maternal health (Plümper and Neumayer 2006;Kotsadam and Østby 2019). in addition, the types of trauma women are subjected to in war often bring severe psychological ill-health when the war is over (Brounéus 2019).A study in Kosovo found that 96% of interviewed lone mothers widowed by the war suffered from depression, anxiety or substance abuse 10 years after the trauma (Morina and Emmelkamp 2012).High depression and anxiety rates were also found among war widows in Nepal, in particular among those who faced property conflicts and livelihood stress (Basnet, Kandel, and Lamichhane 2018).
The war in Sri Lanka brought severe consequences for psychological health (Somasundaram 2007). in addition to losing their spouse in the war, many war widows also lost other family members and loved ones, and experienced displacement, harassment, poverty and other injury.in some of the most war-affected locations, such as Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi, many war widows suffer from severe psychological ill-health; suicide and suicide attempts have reached alarming levels (interviews 2017-7; 2017-9).Some cases of suicide seemed linked to poverty and financial impossibility, for example, the despair of being unable to pay off loans (interview 2017-8).
To cope with trauma and psychological ill health, grief and practices of grieving are key.De facto widows face a particular type of trauma as their husband's body was never recovered and there is scarce information about what happened.Figures from the international Committee of the Red Cross (iCRC) suggest that 16,000 people were still considered missing by their families in 2016 (iCRC 2016, 3).This uncertainty causes severe stress in the families and hinders the use of conventional coping mechanisms for loss and grief (interview 2015-15c).This ambiguity is further amplified at times by the belief many widows have that their husband is still alive (iCRC 2016). 5 Several of our interviewees discussed the importance of religious rituals to help deal with grief (interview 2017-3), stressing that many families of the missing cannot perform these rituals as they do not have the body of their deceased loved one (interview 2017-6).Public grieving ceremonies are important in Sri Lanka (interview 2017-8), but have also been extremely politicised (interview 2017-9). in particular, public, state-sanctioned commemoration of the war has been selective (Ruwanpathirana 2016). in contrast to the public commemoration ceremonies for the Sri Lankan army military widows, public commemoration of LTTE war-related deaths was banned until 2015 (interview 2017-10).This ban on rituals has made it more difficult for Tamil war widows to recover (interview 2017-7).And again, the issue is complex: some women preferred not to know the truth of their husband's death, to avoid the social stigma of widowhood (interview 2016-6).But for all, dealing with trauma and psychological ill-health is further hampered by a severe lack of psychosocial services, especially in the north and east, where such services were prohibited for many years (interview 2015-17b; 2017-15).As in many other war-affected countries, the few services that do often difficult to access due to damaged infrastructure.Some war widows have also reluctant to seek help, as very few counsellors are women (interview 2017-3).
A final note on trauma and grief.Several interviewees shared that over time since the war ended, war widows and other survivors in Sri Lanka have become increasingly disillusioned with the numerous government-led initiatives to uncover and address atrocities of the war.Many widows have come forward to testify in these initiatives, such as the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and the Consultation Task Force (CTF), but were left deeply frustrated with the lack of any real outcomes.A common view was that 'people get retraumatized by giving testimonies, and then nothing happens' (interview 2017-3).The government was often criticised in our interviews for initiating processes of transitional justice and memorialisation, but without considering psychosocial implications (interview 2017-3).For many, these initiatives have been a political exercise in smoke and mirrors.

Coping with challenges
Our interviews over the years in Sri Lanka point to the astonishing strength, courage, innovation, and agency of many war widows in finding individual and collective coping strategies, securing space for economic, social and psychological survival.For example, by coming together in widows' associations and cooperatives, they have formed networks for economic opportunities and psychosocial support (interview 2017-14; 2017-15; see also Basnet, Kandel, and Lamichhane 2018). in Sri Lanka, while some initiatives receive local or international support, many are self-organised (interviews 2017-5; 2017-6).Some programs have played an important role in empowering young widows; for older widows, we learned, livelihood programs can be more difficult, as taking up work in a society where this goes against tradition is intimidating (interview 2015-13).Some war widows have gone to the Middle East for work (with many new challenges ensuing), instead of working in the community (interview 2018-3).But not everyone has the possibility to organise in this way; and many of those who do meet unimaginable resistance, as described in this article.Over time, as widows take on traditional tasks of men, gender discriminatory practices can hopefully transform.But, gender norms are sticky and resilient, and fundamental change towards equality is yet to happen in Sri Lanka.

Breaking the vicious circles of war widowhood
For war widows in Sri Lanka, the severe trauma of war has been followed by a peace marred by legal, economic, social and psychological hardship.Caught in the crossfire of demographic change, post-war insecurities, financial hardship, and culture and tradition, their predicaments are shaped both by the war experience itself, and by gender norms.Trials range from the social stigmatisation of being blamed for their husband's death, to severe economic and land-rights inequalities, to sexual exploitation.They suffer from harassment and security threats from family and the wider community.The predicaments are closely interlinked, and become reinforced in vicious circles of risk, vulnerability and stigmatisation, wherein stigma creates livelihood challenges, leading to sexual and/or financial exploitation, exacerbating the stigma, leading to more exclusion, and so on.
The question of war widows is of central importance for fractured and transitional societies, where the experience of war widows intersects with broader questions of how the legitimacy of the state can be restored for groups that have previously been marginalised and victimised.With an eye on history, pensions for veterans and war widows formed a foundation the gradual development of welfare states the u.S. and (Skocpol 1992).More recent cases suggest that the expansion of social protection to vulnerable groups can provide the basis for a new societal contract in countries seeking to establish a new, more legitimate and inclusive post-war order (Mangshang and Griffiths 2018).From this perspective, war widows form an important constituency that crosses demographic divides, with potential for inter-ethnic solidarity and peacebuilding.
Having delineated the severe predicaments facing war widows, we end by calling on scholars, policymakers, and practitioners, to act to help break these vicious post-war circles, for the well-being and empowerment of war widows, in post-war settings globally.While research exists on war widows, ranging from ethnographic studies documenting the conditions of war widows in case studies to household surveys painting a picture at the macro level, knowledge remains limited.As a complement to reigning approaches, we propose a new, sustainable, research-practice relationship to build knowledge on and address the challenges of war widows.For this new research agenda, a few things are needed: First, we need to open a new line of research inquiry: projects that genuinely bridge the peace research-practice divide so that what is lived on the ground by war widows, and what research tells us of the broader gender harms facing them, can inform collaborative action to prevent these harms.These are long-term projects with uncertain outcomes, which calls for flexibility on the side of the funder.
Second, the research needs to depart from -and actively include -the war widows themselves.To this end, researchers need to climb down from the ivory tower, listen and learn, and then begin weaving in what we know from the broader field.Through collaboration we can build a new kind of evidence-based knowledge and practice on how to undo war-related discriminatory gender norms and practices, and bring human rights also to war widows.
Here, we have raised some of the extraordinary challenges Sri Lankan war widows meet in peace.Similar challenges are seen in many other post-war settings too, such as Rwanda, Syria, the dRC, Colombia or Afghanistan, but context-specific aspects will affect notions of, and realities for, war widows.When extrapolating from this study, it is important to be cognisant of some of the specific features of Sri Lanka that shape notions of widowhood.These include the religious and ethnic diversity of the country (in contrast to a more homogenous cultural setting), the victory of the government side (in contrast to peacebuilding in the context of a negotiated settlement), and the legacy of the LTTE, which included a large number of war widows who also fought the war (in contrast to conflicts with few women combatants).Whatever the setting, war widows constitute a unique group of survivors after war, upon whom so much depends.Future studies would do well in exploring how support can be realised for the well-being and empowerment of war widows, in post-war environments globally.Peace research and policy should begin this work together already today.many if post-conflict settings, politics continue to be contested albeit by other than war, and may have evolved into other forms of violence with severe consequences not least for minorities (e.g.Smith et al. 2020).2. Also referred to as 'false widows' (Rousseau 1987); 'half-widows ' Nazir and Manzoor (2018).We use de jure and de facto war widows to capture the distinction between those who can legally claim (de jure) widowhood and those who cannot due to disappearance, but who live in de facto widowhood.3. We focus on widows from the long war between the LTTE and the government.However, war widows in Sri Lanka also stem from casualties from the Marxist-Leninist JVP insurgency in 1971-72 and 1987-89, and we recognize that the traumas from the JVP insurgency have not been sufficiently addressed (Gunatilleke 2015).4. The Sri Lankan department of Pensions website informs that in the month of November 2022, an average pension of uSd 78 was paid to 188,513 widows and orphans.However, we have not found information on how many of these were war widows.Our reading of the ordinance also suggests that only widows and orphans from civil servants are eligible recipients.All in all, we conclude that substantial pensions are only given to military widows, and a smaller pension to widows from civil servants.(Accessed on december 21, 2022: https://www.pensions.gov.lk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25&itemid=156&lang=en#2022-november) 5. in one study, close to 400 family members of the missing across Sri Lanka were surveyed.
Among those, 31% believed that their missing relatives were still alive; another 33% were uncertain of whether their relative was dead or alive (iCRC 2016, 16).