A/HRC/45/45/Add.1 many of them multiple times. Although progress had been made on resettlement, over 40,000 persons were yet to be resettled. Internally displaced persons have expressed a strong desire to return to their places of origin. The occupation of land by the military, sometimes for economic activities, coupled with the presence of landmines, the lack of titles and other documentation, and the deliberate resettlement of southern Sinhalese people in the North are preventing the return of displaced people, whose access to education, livelihoods and voting rights are consequently compromised. They are also exposed to harassment by host communities and face inadequate access to employment and even sanitation. The failure to address land disputes has also posed serious challenges for the implementation of the National Policy on Durable Solutions for Conflict-Affected Displacement, approved by the Cabinet in August 2016.32 59. The Special Rapporteur was further informed that there had been little or no consultation with internally displaced persons during the relocation process and that, in many cases, the land provided for their resettlement was not suitable for livelihood activities. Additionally, the newly constructed houses lacked access to basic services and infrastructure, including roads, schools and hospitals. In some cases, government compensation to repair destroyed houses had proved insufficient to meet costs, fuelling a debt crisis. 60. Taking into consideration the huge impact that the conflict and violations have had on women, the Special Rapporteur urges the Office for Reparations, in developing its policies and guidelines, to conduct specific consultations throughout the country, seeking the views of victims, families of victims, communities and others, especially the tens of thousands of widows and other female victims in the country, so that reparations provide concrete remedies to victims, promote reconciliation and assist in restoring public trust in the State. 61. Reparations also include rehabilitation measures. The Special Rapporteur met victims from different ethnic and religious communities across the country and persons victimized during different periods of violence, who had experienced prolonged suffering, an agonizing absence of information and dismissive, unresponsive or “transaction-focused” bureaucrats, as well as negative and unsuccessful experiences with ad hoc mechanisms. These mechanisms were cited by many victims as sources of retraumatization. Psychosocial support is a critical foundation on which communities can build their recovery and is essential not only for mobilizing participation in transitional justice mechanisms but, more broadly, for enabling people to engage with others on a secure footing. Nowhere is the claim of the transformational potential of reparations more justified than with regard to the type of psychosocial support that may help victims overcome trauma. Transitional justice measures are meant to strengthen the idea that people are rights holders. 62. Psychosocial support is needed throughout Sri Lanka but particularly in the North and East, where trauma and tensions have been exacerbated by official denials of the suffering experienced by Tamil civilians during the civil war, the presence of uniformed personnel and other forms of surveillance, the proliferation of victory monuments and the obstacles to local forms of memorialization. Civil society representatives have pointed out that existing psychosocial support is unevenly distributed, citing a lack of support for the Muslim community and for victims of sexual and gender-based violence, and a reluctance of former Tamil Tigers to seek such support for fear of scrutiny from security personnel. They have also cited a dearth of Tamil-speaking counsellors. 63. Since the need for psychological support is mentioned in both the Office for Reparations Act and the August 2018 interim report of the Office on Missing Persons, 33 the Special Rapporteur will not belabour the point in the present report, except to reiterate that psychosocial support will ring hollow unless changes are made to other factors affecting the levels of stress and suffering of the victims. In addition, given the slow pace of the operationalization of the Office on Missing Persons and the Office for Reparations, means of establishing victims’ assistance programmes, including psychosocial support, before fullfledged reparations are made, should be considered. 32 33 12 A/HRC/34/20, para. 49. See also http://nirmin.gov.lk/web/images/pdf/national-policy-on-durablesolutions.pdf. See https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/bd81c0_3a8b43afeb334c66b2233cbeac3b3fcf.pdf.