Women come to the fore in politics

by Lal HEWAPATHIRANA

The International Women's Day was celebrated on March 8. Many functions and celebrations were held to mark the occasion. As usual, topics on equal rights, equal opportunities, women and violence, women and conflicts, women and their working conditions, and more were widely discussed by these interested in gender issues, including the champions of reputed non-governmental Organisations, to the most humble leader in a small women's society in the village. The following day, everything that was discussed 24 hours earlier was forgotten by the advocates of women's liberation and the women suffering due to abuse of their rights, and as usual, the society returned to square one, as if nothing had taken place on the previous day - the International Women's Day.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike	Vivian Gunawardena	Malini Fonseka

Commencing in the USA, the world has been celebrating this important day for 100 years. Fifteen years ago, an important women's conference was held in Beijing, where thousand of important Sri Lankan women participated to draw up a declaration and a plan of action to address many important gender issues, with focus on positive advancement of the status of women, who are denied their rights and privileges.

While new ground has been broken in some aspects of the issue during the past five to six years through the sponsorship of the Government, it is a pity that those women who were denied their rights questioned as to why they have not become stakeholders of more tangible achievements considered success stories of women's emancipation, even fifteen years after the Beijing conference. Perhaps, the Non-Governmental Beijing participants may have the answer.

However, in this backdrop, one voice was clearly heard on a highly pertinent topic raised by one of our most illustrious women leaders, during the United Nations International Women's Day celebrations held in Colombo the former Vice Chancellor of the Colombo university, Prof. Savithri Gunasekera. Prof. Gunasekera, without mincing words, said that political representation of women in Sri Lanka must be significantly increased to enhance their influence at the decision making level.

She deplored that when compared with other countries, Sri Lanka lacks women's participation in the field of politics. This perception of the professor is important, because she was referring to the women's participation as members of parliament to advance the cause of women. The professor is probably aware that from time immemorial, women have been in the forefront of campaigns to elect their male counterpart to parliament. Her statement is pertinent as we are about to exercise our right to franchise and elect our representatives next month.

If we examine the list of women Members of Parliament since 1947 we come across only a few names of those who were elected to the Parliament due to their own virtues, interest, active participation in politics and true grassroots level leadership. Adeline Molamure, the wife of the first Speaker in the first Parliament was the first women MP, and she was heavily involved in the political activities of UNP Women's League.

Later elected to parliament were Clodagh Jayasuriya (UNP), Florence Senanayake, Vivian Gunawardena, Kusuma Gunawardena, Thamara Kumari Illangaratne, Soma Wickremanayake and Kusuma Rajaratne and a few others. Though some of them were the wives of the sitting MPs, the important fact was that they were elected by the people due to their own performance by being engaged in local level politics, and for having contributed vigorously towards the vision of their political parties.

According to data, none of these women parliamentarians seems to have contributed anything substantial to upgrade the status of the women's community of Sri Lanka, apart from promoting their political party ideologies and securing the votes for themselves at the expense of the poor women, living in slums and shanties or employed in rubber tapping or tea plucking or working in factories.

The first phase of the Mahinda Chintana which President Mahinda Rajapaksa presented at the Presidential Election in 2005, stressed the need for some positive steps to support in upgrading the standard of the disadvantage women. Coupled with the themes of growth and security for children, all women were to receive adequate social and legal protection not only for their rights, but for their well being as well. Through the Ministry of Child Development and Women's Empowerment many unexplored areas were targeted and considerable success was achieved in terms of the general uplift of the status of women in some identified areas while much more is in the pipeline.

The trend is being continued with greater vigour and foresight under the phase two of Mahinda Chintana.

On the point raised by Prof. Savithri Gunasekera, regarding provision of opportunities for more women to work at decision making level in the Parliament as MPs, it is sad to note that Sri Lanka had the lowest percentage of women MPs in parliament which was dissolved recently a mere 5.6 percent with 13 women MPs - when compared with other countries in South Asia, except Bangladesh. Ironically, population-wise there are more women than men in Sri Lanka now, and women voters exceed 50 percent. A healthy percentage of at least 10 percent of women MPs in the new Parliament would do justice to the cause of women in the country, in terms of fairness and justice.

Sri Lanka will then enjoy some respectable status among its South Asian colleagues, as India has only 8.8 percent and Nepal only 5.8 percent. Pakistan has 20 percent. India is preparing to increase the percentage to 33.

However, it is too late for us to anticipate more opportunities for women in the next Parliament as all nominations have now been closed for the general election next month and it is doubtful that all women who contest will be elected. Nevertheless, there is room for satisfaction, as all nomination lists filed by the major political parties contain names of women aspiring to become MPs. If one were to make an analytical guess, going by the nomination lists already filed, even the next Parliament will hardly comprise at least 6 percent women MPs. By some chance, if it does get 6 percent or more, all advocates of women's rights should feel contented, for it will be history created in Sri Lanka during President Rajapaksa's tenure, that the next Parliament will have the highest percentage of women MPs, the majority representing the UPFA, as all predictions and projections are for a UPFA landslide victory.

There is, however, one practical solution that would help an increased number of women MPs to represent the over 50 percent of the women population in the country, if all party leaders are genuinely interested and committed towards the progress and the forward march of Sri Lankan women.

This is with reference to the National List, which the three leading contending parties have already announced. Even though it is encouraging to observe the names of some women in those lists, it should be said that all leaders would have done better by increasing women representation at least in the National Lists. History shows us that these lists are, however subject to change which means if the leaders so decide they could improve the existing lists. Our leaders, of course, know how to set about as they have done it in the past.

A cursory look at the three National Lists concerned indicate that there are only about nine names of women of the permitted 87, Of them only four women are familiar in the electorate, namely, Swarna Obeysekera (UNF), Malini Fonseka, Kamala Ranatunga (UPFA) and Swinitha Weerasinghe (DNA). Swarna Obeysekera is well known for her role in women's development in particular, and it is hoped that she will be included in the UNF's final list, for she is one of those who can represent women in Parliament effectively due to her wide experience in the field of women and gender. (Malini Fonseka and Swinitha Weerasinghe are film stars who have carried out the instructions of their directors for the silver screen, only to make audiences happy.

Thus they live in a dream world far from reality, and still farther away from the world of suffering women. Malini Fonseka could be well recognised for her many feats and the international recognition she has earned for the Sri Lankan cinema.

Kamala Ranatunga is the most versatile of the lot, with a very convincing record of long and prestigious service in the fields of women's politics as well as promotion of women's right through the Women's Organisation of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. Introduced to SLFP politics by SWRD Bandaranaike himself in 1957, she contested elections from the SLFP ticket and was elected as a SLFP women's representative to the Western Provincial Council.

Since President Rajapaksa took over the reins of the SLFP, she has been a tower of strength in the SLFP Women's Organisation working day and night for the party to win elections.

Due to her oratorical skills, in verse and prose and being heavily involved in politics, she has been one of the most sought after speakers on SLFP platforms for several decades. Political rivals had subjected her to violence on numerous occasions, and she was even remanded following bogus complaints during UNP regimes. She has fought fearlessly for over 53 years to promote the status of women in rural areas and to politically educate them to take up social responsibilities. She is a role model of a woman, who could champion the cause of women and women's rights in any forum.

Faces and parties of women apart, the need is for more competent and capable women to reach levels that would empower them to support gender issues and promote women's right, where proper decisions on women's issues could be made and legislation enacted, which in this country is parliament.

Lal Hewapathirana is the former Director of World view Sri Lanka. He is currently a consultant in Development Media and Communication.