The Rights Of Women In The Post War Conflict: The Constitution And Its Guarantees

May 31, 2012

By Munasinghe Prasadika Sandamani -

Sri Lanka suffered enormously from the conflict between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) for more than 30 years resulting in economic, civil, political, social and cultural devastation. During the armed conflict a significant growth of continuous displacement resulted in more than a million people being internally displaced. Some of them were internally displaced within the districts that they inhabit whilst some were forced to leave the shores of their home and become refugees in countries such as India or other western countries. As a postmortem to the post war conflict, the male population has declined due to their disappearances or their involvement in the conflict which has resulted in their death and this has inevitably increased the female population in the North and East.

The main objective of this article is to discuss how far the constitution of Sri Lanka has gone to implement laws to address the rights of the women in the post war conflict with respect their religious, social and cultural differences. With this aim in mind the post war conflict experiences of women have been discussed. The first section of this report highlights the definition of constitutionalism and fundamental rights. Section two describes women rights and the main issues faced by women in the post war conflict. There is a brief review of the role of the Constitution and its crisis and I describe in overall terms of the world how far the post conflict problems have been solved. Government reforms and a conclusion are discussed in the last section.

What is a ‘constitution’?    Read More