Your Vote is your Voice

It is now time for women to move on forward from holding fast unto death campaigns, shouting to drive off elephants out of their homes, campaigning with Trade Unions holding banner placards and screaming slogans at protest marches.

by Victor Cherubim-Dec 30, 2017

( December 30, 2017, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Women have a wonderful opportunity with the forthcoming Local Government elections in Sri Lanka. Your vote is your voice. No more wailing that the floods have taken your home, no more claiming that the price of a coconut has doubled in years, no more holding a photo of your loved one and waiting for the Government “to do something.”

To give excuses like “women don’t come forward to contest, women have too many other responsibilities, in the current political climate, it costs a lot to seek election,” is one way to beg the question.

What is lacking in women in Sri Lanka?

We all know that 52% of Sri Lanka’s population are made up by women.

In 1931 Sri Lanka became the first country in Asia to give women the vote on the same basis as men. It was just a few years after women in Britain and perhaps, slightly more than a decade after women in the States obtained this right.

Women in Sri Lanka made rapid progress in relation to health, education and employment. Much was done in the home in medical care.

We note that women have a 1 in 8 chance of dying in their lifetime due to pregnancy related causes compared with 1 in 4,800 chance in Britain. With rural health network centres, Sri Lanka success in reducing maternal deaths is attributed to broad, free access to maternal health, professionalisation of midwives, availability of basic medical supplies and obstetric medication. My Grandmother in Sri Lanka died at childbirth and so I am personally proud of this progress and achievement.

In respect of education, women are outperforming men in schools and universities and are gainfully occupied.

But the spectacular achievement of women is in seeking employment abroad. Women working abroad – a life blood of the nation’s economy. There is nothing more to add.

What is lacking in Sri Lanka is summed up beautifully by Subha Wijesiriwardena in “The Women’s Question in Sri Lanka: A Reflection 2017:

“Women often do not believe they are worthy candidates or could enter a life of politics. The second is at the level of the party, where parties systematically discriminate women and rarely ever nominate women. Finally, it is at the level of the electorate where a combination of a lack of visibility in relation to other campaigns and conditioned sexism and sexual biases towards male authority prevent women from being elected by the public.”

Prejudice against women particular to Local elections

Prejudice against women as political candidates in Local Government elections and the voting habits of rural people has been highlighted as the public/private divide in which women are subjugated to roles related to the home and family.
What is very noticeable outside Sri Lanka, and hardly visible in the country, is the fact of obese men holding political positions in various political parties. It is understandable rural women have been kept in the kitchen for one purpose only.

It is no longer for women to be given space to engage in politics.

It is now time for women to move on forward from holding fast unto death campaigns, shouting to drive off elephants out of their homes, campaigning with Trade Unions holding banner placards and screaming slogans at protest marches.

It is about time women’s grievances are aired in the corridors of power in Pradesha Sabhas. Politicians of all parties have a duty to attract women to contest and give nominated women candidates every support and preference as necessary to make the third and lowest level of government in Sri Lanka a collective voice for women now, if only to see progress in the preparation for the General Election in 2020.

What do you want for women in Sri Lanka in 2018?

2018 marks the centenary of women winning their right to vote in the UK. What we need in Sri Lanka is to celebrate the gender equality and join in voting many women, including shy women in rural communities by getting them elected to Local Government.