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Wonderful Women’s Day Words

08 Mar 2021

Today (8) marks the International Women’s Day 2021, and Sri Lanka’s women are left with a myriad of unaddressed, burning issues. They remain hopeful, not because they see promising signs, but because hope is all they have been given, instead of actual, tangible changes. Every year, on International Women’s Day, Sri Lanka celebrates the country’s women and pledges to resolve their hardships. Even though these are admirable thoughts and words, the tangible results of these celebrations are inconsequential, and most of the issues faced by women remain unaddressed, and sometimes forgotten. Making sure that women receive recognition for the blood and tears they have shed has become an uphill battle for the authorities as well as the groups working for women’s rights, for some mysterious reason. On the one hand, Sri Lanka’s women play an important role in contributing to society, economy, and culture, and they always have. On the other hand, over the years, the nature and severity of the hardships they have undergone have increased. To address these issues, successive governments have come up with more plans than action. Almost all the governments that ruled Sri Lanka had a minister responsible for women’s affairs. A considerable number of them were women, while there were also times when men were entrusted with the task of taking decisions for women. However, the tragic reality is that irrespective of the gender of the minister, Sri Lanka has achieved very little when it comes to giving the country’s women the recognition they deserve. One good example is the lack of female representation in Parliament, despite decades of struggle to make sure that the country’s foremost law-making institution pays heed to the interests of women when making law. Modern-day women have to struggle to be respected, despite the number of State institutions and activists/organisations advocating equality for women. Sri Lanka has a feminist movement too, which has produced acclaimed human rights defenders/feminists such as Sunila Abeysekara, who fought for women’s rights in various ways. In the recent past, however, there were instances that raised concerns as to whether Sri Lanka’s feminist movement has become counter-productive, and whether it has achieved what it hoped to achieve. Also, concerns were raised as to the extent to which rural, grassroots-level women benefit from the mainstream feminist movements. Colombo has several feminist groups/networks that do a great deal of advocacy and awareness-raising programmes. Clearly, Sri Lanka has a considerable number of groups and initiatives, both private and state, aimed at making women’s lives better, and at the same time, there are countless, never-ending discourses about giving due recognition to women in a patriarchal society. However, somewhere along the way, the results of the aforementioned initiatives have vanished into thin air, and the position of Sri Lanka’s women is in a sorry state. Let us reiterate that at the end of the day, men and women are uniquely beautiful and important. Both parties hold many a responsibility in building society and the country, and each party is doing as great a job as the other and deserves to be appreciated. Why is Sri Lanka so lackadaisical when it comes to taking decisions benefitting women, and why do the lion’s share of these decisions never see the light of day? One reason is that Sri Lanka, like many a country in the world, has a majority-male government, which is more concerned about looking at problems from a man’s perspective. In addition, despite the gender difference, Sri Lankan politicians in general show reluctance to address human rights issues, and their political movement is based on what they say they are going to do, instead of what they do. On this women’s day, Sri Lanka needs to look into why it has achieved so little, despite so many promises about ensuring women’s rights. Giving promises and hope is a start, but it must not be the end.


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