Identity crises, sexual misadventures, alcohol abuse, depression and the memory of victimisation before, during and after migration are some problems the refugee are trying hard to cope with.

Among the glaringly obvious aspects of the impact of migration is the alarming rise in the birth rate in the refugee camps. Finding it hard to pick up the thread of their life, many of the disillusioned refugees have decided to produce more children. There are many objectives of this decision, but the most important reason is a desire to replenish the stock of their depleted tribe back in the home country.

Unfortunately, adolescents are thestandard-bearers of this battle of numbers. Teenaged girls are becoming mothers and boys are deserting their parents' homes to find life partners at 15.

These startling facts were disclosed in a study on Sri Lankan child refugees and the socio-psychological aspects of their victimisation, presented at the third biennial conference of the Indian Society of Victimology (ISV). The theme of the conference was child victims of crime.

The study was conducted candidly by the Department of Criminology, University of Madras, in three refugee camps at undisclosed locations in Tamil Nadu. A behavioural analysis of 30 children of both sexes between the ages of 10 and 16 has revealed some shocking trends.

Presenting the details of the study, Dr K. Chockalingam, head of the Department of Criminology and president of ISV, said: ``While in Sri Lanka during the conflict, the children had been victimised in several ways. They starved and were without shelter for days, and some have experienced sexual abuse at the handsof soldiers.'' For teenagers who spent their childhood amid grenade and artillery reports and picked their way to school through dead and mutilated bodies in Jaffna, recovery is turning out to be complex affair. With no direction to their lives, sex has become central and multiplication is an increasingly common priority.

Says Dr P. Prasanna of the Department of Criminology: ``Marrying young is a fad among the refugees. They do not believe in birth control. Their ultimate motive is to produce as many children as possible and increase their population to make up for the loss of life in the ethnic violence in Sri Lanka.''

Explaining the other factors, Prasanna says: ``With little socialising, the refugee children have a lot of spare time. Television is their most common and accessible form of entertainment. They usually watch two to three Tamil movies every day on their own video players. Adolescent boys and teenage girls look to each other for love, affection and sex." If parents oppose a marriage, thechildren usually attempt suicide, either by burning themselves or jumping into a well, the study adds.

There are other reasons for adolescent marriages in the refugee camps. One is the close proximity of the houses, which are at times partitioned from each other only by thin sheets of cloth. The average house measures only about 100 square feet. Naturally, families are forced to sleep in the same room with bizarre consequences for the children, who are exposed to the sex life of their parents. ``Some of them revealed that they stay awake into the wee hours of the morning. This in turn builds in them the urge to indulge in sexual activities.''

Meanwhile, the parents themselves are suffering from the trauma of being cut off from their roots. ``Almost all grown-ups have experienced the trauma of losing close family members to the violence. They still bear the burden of the previous life of terror, starvation and relentless stress,'' says Chockalingam.

Interestingly, except for providing food, shelter andsecurity the state government has little role in the refugee camps. ``The medical officers, social workers, and non-governmental personnel working in the camps are all Sri Lankans,'' says Prasanna. This restricts the socialising opportunities of the inmates even further.

Many of the families are experiencing a crisis in their relationships with their children. Parents have lost all control and their children conduct their lives precisely as they wish. They are running away from home, marrying early, having sex and producing children. The bottomline, as she says, is that ``they want to rebuild their lost empire.''