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| Sunday, 26 March 2006 |
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'Equal opportunity for all' by Elmo Leonard President Mahinda Rajapakse is the first leader of the nation who has committed himself to introduce laws to remove inequalities among men and women, Media and Information Minister, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said. Such disparities relate to salaries of women, property rights, treatment at public institutions, public service and many other areas, Minister Yapa said. The Minister's presentation was read out at a residential workshop on `Women in today's media,' within the frame of `A SAARC working group on gender and poverty.' Minister Yapa observed that the concept of the seminar fitted wholly with government's vision towards a new Sri Lanka by providing equal opportunity for all Sri Lankans irrespective of gender, race and background. The seminar was organised by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) and the Agromart Foundation of Sri Lanka. KAS was presently concentrating on four major areas, one being poverty alleviation and women empowerment, with their Sri Lanka project partners, Agromart. In that context, there is a big role for NGOs to play in assisting the government to develop strategies and policies with regard to equality and women's rights, the minister said. The Minister reminded that President Rajapakse, in his election manifesto the Mahinda Chinthana, had expressed the need to give women their rightful place in society, especially to the mother, as society's foundation is the family and take prime place. President Rajapakse had also planned to launch a programme to provide an institutional framework for a foundation to empower women called `Diriya Kantha'. This program will provide special self-employment schemes for women and assist females to be economically independent. Women will also be financially supported by the `Lanka Putra' banking scheme without any collateral, Minister Yapa said. To provide assistance to women who are subject to violence and mental torture or depression, a scheme called `Kantha Pilisarana', or `Assistance for women', has been planned and will be launched with special attention to the victims of the tsunami and the ethnic conflict. Within this year, a women's charter of rights will be enacted to provide protection and equality for women. In order to make this effort more effective, President Rajapakse has opened his doors to seek the fullest corporation of the organisations that have been set up for women's rights and also to the applicable NGOs, Minister Priyadarshana Yapa said. |
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