Sri Lanka is preparing to send 185 police officers, most of them from the paramilitary Special Task Force, to Haiti for United Nations duties, returning Sri Lankan personnel to a country where earlier Sri Lankan peacekeepers were accused of the sexual exploitation and abuse of children.
The officers will travel in three groups, with the first two leaving this month and the last in November, the Police Media Division said . The contingent includes 174 Special Task Force personnel and 11 other police officers, among them two doctors from the Police Medical Division. The Inspector General of Police, Priyantha Weerasooriya, met the officers at the Special Task Force Training School in Katukurunda on Tuesday.
The deployment follows the army's dispatch of Sri Lanka's largest peacekeeping contingent to Haiti, which has drawn objections from rights groups.
In 2007, the United Nations said it had received allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by members of the Sri Lankan battalion serving with the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), and that 108 Sri Lankan soldiers were being repatriated on disciplinary grounds, according to the UN secretary-general's spokesperson . Senior officers were also sent home over failures of command.
The allegations involved Haitian children, who were allegedly exploited in exchange for small amounts of money or food at several locations where Sri Lankan personnel were based. A later UN investigation identified allegations involving more than 100 members of successive Sri Lankan contingents between 2004 and 2007.
The UN Committee Against Torture noted in 2016 that only 23 of the more than 100 accused had been convicted, and raised concern about the lack of clarity over the punishments imposed. In September, the Sri Lankan army acknowledged that soldiers had committed crimes against Haitian children, saying those responsible had been tried in internal military proceedings and dismissed. In 2018, the military was accused of attempting to cover up the abuses .
Amnesty International has said publicly available information does not show that any Sri Lankan peacekeeper was criminally prosecuted and convicted over the allegations, and called for answers on the vetting of Sri Lankan personnel sent to Haiti. Rights advocates have warned that Sri Lankan troops have returned to Haiti without a vetting system .
The Special Task Force, a police commando unit, has been accused of grave abuses against Tamils, including the 1987 Kokkadichcholai massacre in Batticaloa. Last year, STF officers were filmed assaulting a woman during arrests in Kilinochchi.
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