Women In Sri Lanka Seek 25% Increase Of Women’s Political Representation

May 13, 2015 

Women’s Groups in Sri Lanka have today urged all political parties to take necessary steps to increase the number of women in Parliament.

Issuing a statement following a consultation held on the 11th May on the draft 20th Amendment to the Constitution, the Women and Media Collective says; “taking into consideration that it is a sine qua non of good governance (yaha palanaya) that all citizens should be given equal access to political representation, regardless of gender, class, caste, ethnicity, and so on.”

Kumudini Samuel – the founder of Women and Media Collective

We publish below the statement in full;

Political Representation of Women- Ensuring 25% Increase

Recommendations made by Women’s Groups in Sri Lanka to the 20th Amendment to the Constitution Currently under Discussion

Women in Sri Lanka have had the right to vote from as early as 1931, but very little opportunity to become the people’s elected political representatives-not in either Parliament or in Provincial or Local Government. This fact has been highlighted worldwide in official statistics, where the country rates shockingly low on the global index of women’s political representation, even in South Asia, Sri Lanka ranks 140 out of 153 in terms of female representation in Parliament.

Because of this lack of political representation, women’s interests and concerns are barely heard and exert little influence at any level of government. Key policy decisions, including legal reform, are made in critical areas such as security, economic development, reconciliation and democratization while barely consulting perspectives specific to women, 52 per cent of the population, and citizens who do not have the same perspectives as men do, because they do not enjoy the privileges that men have as men in Sri Lankan society. The lack of a strong representation of women in decision making positions is, without doubt, a major cause of gender blind policy making.

President Maithripala Sirisena echoed this concern in his 100 day Work Programme, proposing that legislation would be introduced to ensure at least 25% women’s representation in Provincial Councils and Local Government.                                  Read More