Jeyakumari's youngest son was conscripted into the LTTE prior to the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War that was being waged in the Northern and Eastern parts of the country. Having survived the war and rejoined his family, the boy was asked to surrender to the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. Jeyakumari heeded the call of the authorities and surrendered her son, who was 15 years old at the time. He vanished while in the custody of the Lankan state, after he was photographed being ‘rehabilitated’.