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| Sunday, 09 March 2003 |
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Time for women to mobilise themselves by JAYANTHI LIYANAGE "Towards peace which respects the rights of all" was the theme when the Mothers and Daughters of Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka Women's NGO Forum celebrated the International Women's Day on Thursday. Nearly 500 women from 28 women's organisations from Jaffna, Batticaloa, Akkaraipattu, Uva-Wellassa, Welikanda, Kalpitiya, Mannar, Vavuniya, Chilaw, Buttala, Moneragala and the Free Trade Zone joined those from the South and the West, to march round the Vihara Maha Devi Park raising women's concerns in the process of peace-building, resettling the displaced, participation in the national policy-making, recruitment of child soldiers and the rising cost of living, despite rehabilitation and resettlement process in operation, where many women in the North/East were still occupying camps. A novelty of the march was the participation of a strongly vociferous group of young women from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who are currently following Women's Studies here. Divya from India presented a South Asian perspective when she said, "We need to collectively mobilise ourselves as fundamentalism is on the rise in many parts of Asia." The subsequent meeting at the New Town Hall was packed to capacity as Nimalka Fernando, President, International Movement against all forms of Discrimination and Racism, spoke on the role of women's movement in social mobilisation against globalisation and, Sunila Abeysekera, Co-Director, Women and Media Collective, voiced the women's perspective on the present peace process. Saroja Sivachandran, Women's Development Centre, Jaffna and Prof. Sitralega Mounaguru, Suriya Development Centre, Batticaloa, shared their experiences in the North/East with singing entertainment from Deepika Priyadhrashani Peiris, Pradeepa Dharmadasa and young women from Suriya Development Center. |
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