Archive for the ‘Gender’

Women are not willing to go back to pre-war status quo

By Kumi Samuel and Chulani Kodikara ‘Women are not just victims of war, as some aspects of their experiences are empowering and can be used as a resource for healing and transformation’. War is a gendered process. Post war is no different.   It may be a cliché to say that in Sri Lanka as elsewhere in the world, the most visible and harmful impact of 30 years of war has been on women, but that is the reality.  As men joined militant groups or the armed forces, were arrested, abducted, disappeared, or took flight to safer locations outside the community or the country, women were left behind to cope with fractured families and communities; multiple displacement, transition in alien spaces such as camps for the displaced; or resettlement in distant and unfamiliar regions.  Untold numbers of women, mostly Tamil, (but including a significant number of Muslim and Sinhala women living in conflict affected areas) became de facto and de jure heads…

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Provincial Council Elections 2008/2009: Nominations for and representation of women

Table1

A number of columnists have commented on the various different aspects of the Provincial Council elections held in 2008 /2009 beginning with the Eastern PC elections in May 2008. These comments have ranged from increasing election fatigue, the costs to the tax payer, the phenomenon of the new contenders, and implications of results for future parliamentary and presidential elections. Here I would like to focus on the nominations given to women and women’s representation in PCs following these elections. According to statistics from the Department of Elections a total of 31 political parties and numerous Independent groups (as many as 13 in some districts) contested for the 417 seats in the 8 PC elections held between May 2008 and October 2008. A staggering 9356 candidates were given nominations, almost double the number at the 2004 PC elections. 711 women were among the candidates i.e 7.5% of the total number of candidates. As Table No. 1 indicates this is slightly less…

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1,000 posts on Groundviews: Bearing witness, shaping peace

Exactly three years after its launch, Groundviews published its 1000th post today. In it Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu identifies the site with quality debate and asks citizens to use it to canvass their ideas for constitutional reform, governance, human rights and the economy and whatever else they see as constituting essential elements of an agenda for change and reform. Over three years, Groundviews has borne witness to that which traditional print and electronic media did not, and for well-known reasons, could not. Post-war for example, our path-breaking coverage of the situation facing IDPs in Menik Farm was picked up and featured on leading domestic and international media, including the New York Times, Al Jazeera and the BBC. The wealth of debate and submissions online already makes Groundviews unique as an online resource and platform for engaging discussion in Sri Lanka. We are globally recognised as an authoritative voice on Sri Lanka and were the first to feature a mobile version, and…

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A response to Gomin Dayasiri’s “Return of the Colombians”

Friends, Colombians and Countrymen, a few weeks ago the commercial capital of our country; Colombo was attacked. This was not a conventional armed attack and nor was it a terrorist attack, but yet it was an attack, an attack upon the social, political and cultural complexity of Colombo. I refer to the article titled ‘Return of the Colombians’. Firstly, this elitist analysis of Colombo’s population ignores the complex cross cutting social strata based cleavages of Colombo’s society. A complexity and multiculturalism that was born from years of demographic and cultural change which manifested itself in a multi layered social and economic Colombian mosaic. An elitist analysis of Colombo ignores the vast amount of Colombians who are not elites. These people are the people who keep the lifeblood of our city flowing; by their hard work, blood, sweat and tears. These are the people who don’t drive expensive cars, live in grand houses or apartments and earn a monthly wage of…

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On women’s attire and gender equality: pondering on the long way ahead

I was strongly tempted to write this article after reading an article entitled On woman’s attire: Are we really tempting young boys and priests, by a writer under the pen name “Gypsy Bohemia”. The article was published on Groundviews on July 10 2009. We learn that the writer of the said article is a journalist working for a leading Sri Lankan newspaper. What follows is a ‘salad ball’ of ideas that stemmed from reading Gypsy Bohemia’s article and reader comments. First of all, as a Sinhala Buddhist and a Sri Lankan, I extend my sincere appreciation of this writer and I my regret on her unpleasant experience. I fully endorse her viewpoint on the issue. To put it in a nutshell, a Sri Lankan woman found Gypsy Bohemia’s attire ‘unacceptable’ at a public event. Reading through some forty-three reader comments that follow this article, I was left with partial satisfaction and boiling rage. The comments made by some Sri Lankans…

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  • 10 Jul, 2009
  • 47 Comments
  • Colombo,
    Gender

On a woman’s attire: Are we really tempting young boys and priests?

As a journalist, there is almost no end to the diversity of people I meet on a day-to-day basis. I was covering an event this morning with a colleague and was accosted by a lady who asked to speak to me in private to which I agreed, thinking that maybe I could ask her for an interview after the event. She introduced herself as a counselor who worked with children and then proceeded to ask me a series of invasive questions – first, what my age was and then, if I was married. I answered her truthfully and politely wondering where this would lead when she hit me with it: “Darling”, she said sweetly, patting my arm, “I counsel young children on their attire. Now, there are young boys and priests here and when they see you dressed like this, you give them temptation. And that is not good for you”. I was so appalled that, at the time, I couldn’t…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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