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Women in Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a Covid-19 world 

14 Mar 2021

In celebration of International Women’s Day, British Council Sri Lanka hosted a panel discussion on Women in Leadership: achieving an equal future in a Covid-19 world.  The discussion was moderated by human rights lawyer in training and Centre for Equality and Justice Executive Director Shyamala Gomez who has over 20 years experience as an academic researcher and activist. She has also published in the areas of violence against women, sexual violence in conflict, migrant workers rights, women's land rights, reproductive rights, and peace and security for women.   Other panellists included House of Lonali Founder Lonali Rodrigo, British Council Sri Lanka Country Director Maarya Hehman, and University of Kelaniya Vice-Chancellor Prof. Nilanthi De Silva. The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day, “Women in Leadership: achieving an equal future in a Covid-19 world”, celebrates the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, and highlights the gaps that remain.  Shyamala Gomez explained that the discussion will focus on women's rights to decision-making in all areas of life, equal pay, equal sharing of unpaid care and domestic work, and an end to all forms of violence against women and girls with healthcare services that respond to their needs.  “Women’s full and effective participation and leadership in all areas of life drive progress for everyone. Yet, women are still underrepresented in public life and decision-making, as revealed in the UN Secretary-General’s recent report,” she stated, citing the report to show that women are Heads of State or Government in 22 countries, and only 24.9% of national parliamentarians are women. At the current rate of progress, gender equality among Heads of Government will take another 130 years.  Speaking on what these themes mean for women in Sri Lanka, she said: “I think it's very important that we look at the realities. I work with the Centre for Equality and Justice who works closely with affected women, and you can’t imagine the number of challenges that they have in terms of their daily lives.”  She added that these have been exacerbated by the pandemic because you find female heads of households in the different localities in which the war was carried out, or those who have been indirectly and directly affected by the war, find it a struggle to carry on their daily lives.  She also noted that when looking at Sri Lanka’s international record in the labour field or spectrum, we find that Sri Lanka has signed on too much international labour organisations. “We have signed on to maternity benefits, equal remuneration, allowing night work for women but we have not signed on to the convention on workers with family responsibilities, or a convention that talks about sexual harassment in the workplace, we haven’t even signed on to the part-time work convention. All of these have impacts on Sri Lanka and the women and men that work in the labour force.”   Discrimination makes me stronger: Lonali  As a young woman who runs a successful business venture, Lonali Rodrigo stated that she has never directly been discriminated against for her work. “The reason for that is, all the negative criticism that I get, I take it positively. It might be discrimination, but it makes me stronger to think that someone is trying to knock me down just because I’m a woman.”  Despite this, she added that sometimes, she is not taken seriously in her line of work because she is still a young and growing entrepreneur. Describing her work, she said: “In my work, what we do is mainly upcycling. We work with waste and convert it into beautiful products as a process of upcycling. This process needs a lot of love and time and I think women have that in hand; they're born with love and care.”  She explained that to give the women she works with good working conditions, she offers them flexible working hours. “It is important to offer women flexible working hours so they can balance spending time and tending to their kids.” She added that she also provides them with the skills and machinery so they can learn and improve themselves.  She noted that she also has male employees, but they actually share the same interest and love for the job as the women and do their work skillfully. “These males will help with the cutting of the cloths, giving the wife time to tend to the house and kids, and also reducing her workload which is a good combination.”    There are other issues that need to be addressed: Prof. Nilanthi de Silva Prof. Nilanthi de Silva shared her views from the perspective of an academic and researcher on the challenges that female students in universities face: “There are different categories of people in the university system. At least 60% of the undergraduates are female. Because of our State University admission policy, we don’t have to deal with a lot of discrimination. Over the last few years, I have noticed that women are very active in speaking out on behalf of other women.”  She also noted that as she’s climbed up the ladder, breaking glass ceilings, she found that female representation became less and less. “As an individual, I have never in my career actually encountered any active discrimination. Maybe if it was being said in an undertone, it just went past me. I know that there are issues – whether it is staff or student – that is still a problem in terms of discrimination against women, but I think is not a huge problem in our system because there are other issues that need to be addressed.”    Representation is important: Maarya Hehman  Commenting on what measures in the workplace can be put in place for women to better engage in decision-making processes and to take on leadership positions, Maarya Hehman said: “The most important thing that we can do ensure that we have women at the decision-making table. There is a report in the UK that said that the way that we initially responded to Covid-19 could have been better if we’d only included more women in the policies that we laid out.”  Representation is incredibly important in decision making, and Hehman noted that it is worth pointing out that countries with women leaders have noticeably had better responses to Covid-19. “That's not a coincidence. A more inclusive approach to how you solve a national crisis is obviously going to lead to better outcomes and time and again we see that.”  She concluded that women need a safe space to explore their thoughts and voice their opinions about issues that concern them, and it’s about time we start working on one.

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