Empowerment of women: Who cares?

Daily Mirror

By Manel Abhayaratna

March 11, 2008: Women constitute a little more than half the population of Sri Lanka and should play a more crucial role in the affairs of the country but another International day for women has come and gone and except for a lot of hype, functions and celebrations nothing constructive seems to have been achieved. The president taking the theme for International women’s Day this year "Shaping Progress" said that ‘is timely in the attention it draws to the need to build on the progress already made by women to move towards further and necessary achievements. On this day, it will be useful to think of the areas in which more action is still needed such as equal pay for equal work, women's education and health, and violence against women’. With such a statement concluded the international day. Women from different strata of society asked for their comments on the significance of the day cynically replied that it would not in anyway make much difference to their lives.

Their attitude perhaps reflects the failure of women themselves to unite and seek a solution to the myriad problems they face, the harassments that affect their domestic and working life, the sacrifices they make and the callousness with which they are treated by successive governments. The political empowerment of women in Sri Lanka was a first in the Asian countries. In fact the world’s first woman prime Minister was from Sri Lanka and the former president was also a woman. But essentially it appears that this political power did not have any impact on the well being of women in the country. It neither indicated a high political profile for the average woman, nor did it represent the involvement of women in policy-planning and decision-making at higher levels. Obviously women did not find solace for their problems by being active in politics, in fact even those few women who entered the arena of politics remained divided according to their political loyalties, and they did not unite as one voice when concerns of women became a matter of importance. Women politicians at almost every level supported their political affiliations regardless of planning and working for the common good of women. Common issues affecting women seldom surface in parliament or in local government institutions though some of these institutions are headed by women. For instance, maternal nutrition is important during pregnancy, both for the development of the fetus and for the protection of the mother’s health. Poor maternal health leads to low birth weight leaving some babies malnourished right from birth. Girls that are born with low birth rate grow into women of short stature, who themselves are more likely to have low birth weight babies. But on the average the standards of nutrition that prevail especially in the rural and marginalized shanty areas not only fail to meet their own needs but hinder their efforts to ensure the health of their children.

Malnutrition of mothers and children are a common feature in this country. But women politicians have not highlighted this situation nor expressed any opinion about the effect the high cost of living has on the family. The increased cost of milk foods, eggs and essential food items especially cereals such a dhall, green grams etc which could be nutrient substitutes are issues that should have been of concern. Sadly only a few women’s organizations appear to be concerned about such issues and even they are limited in their protest, and as for the women politicians specifically it appears that their silence is golden. In fact the rural and the marginalized women would certainly have been appreciative if some protest was made and action taken to at least provide some relief to them. Women politicians would surely understand the sufferings and frustration that these women undergo.

Moreover we have an NGO forum of women’s organizations, one wonders whether they could not mobilize from grass root level activists who could agitate for a more rational price level for essential food items. Perhaps they could provide forums for discussion and platforms for lobbying, and form small groups to pressurize politicians especially women politicians to agitate for some type pf relief. It should be recalled that after the inception of the International Women’s day rallies, in 1917 Russian women successfully demonstrated for peace and bread , perhaps we can have as a rallying point a slogan peace and food!. After all in his message the President referred to the progress that has yet to be made concerning women’s development, in that context is not peace in the country and food at affordable prices for the people issues of the highest priority?

Women workers contribution to the economy
More importantly, the country's economy rests to a very large part on the contributions provided by women. While women’s labour plays an important part in the plantation industry the contributions made by migrant women workers in the Middle Eastern countries should be regarded with greater appreciation and concern.

A matter of utmost importance is that women especially those at decision making levels and the NGO forum should consider is the lack of political rights for these thousands of women who migrate abroad for domestic work. Successive governments have acknowledged their repatriated earnings form the second largest source of foreign exchange earnings for Sri Lanka. These migrant women are exposed to numerous exploitations, physical harm, denial of basic human and labour rights and freedoms, and the lack of access to legal or counselling services in the countries they work in, but far worse than all these is that their own country denies them their right to vote. Surely it needs only a logistical planning to provide them the facilities to cast their vote but no-one appears to be bothered about this denial of their basic fundamental right.

Their earnings which are of such importance to the country are obtained by immense sufferings and sacrifice and the end result they receive is a denial of their political right to vote. In addition while these women go through the trauma of working as migrant workers in a foreign country which has its own codes of behaviour and rules .to improve the economic status of their families, the unsupervised children of these migrant workers are often exposed to the undesirable influences, which impact them negatively. Here again those women who are in the political field and who have thereby to make a more positive impact should unite together regardless of the political party affiliations and plan out a more effective programme to assist the children of these migrant workers.

The pitiful work conditions that affect the migrant women workers and a number of women the garment industry seems to be nobody's concern .Both these groups of workers bring into the country the much needed foreign exchanges as also does the tea plantation worker. Sri Lanka earned Rs.76.6 billion (about US$1.5 billion) in 1994 from garment exports produced mainly in the Free Trade Zones (FTZ) in the country - which made up 48% of its export income. Out of the 100,000 jobs created in the FTZs in recent years, 80% have gone to women. There are 500,000 migrant workers, mainly in the Middle-East, who contributed Rs.35 billion (US$ 0.7 billion) to the national coffers in 1994 - over 50% of them are women, working as maids It could be seen that though the woman's role in the economy and in society has become more and more important, her position is still vulnerable. There is no clear and general identification and recognition of women's rights and a women’s charter seems as elusive as ever. The previous UNP government published a women's charter embodying various women's rights recognized internationally.

Women’s Charter
The present PA government, pledged at the elections in 1994 to legalize that charter. However, no action has been taken in that regard, despite there being a Women's Empowerment Ministry headed by a woman politicaisn. The Minister of Child Development nd Women's Empowerment has as its objectives the implementation of policies, plans and programmes in respect of Women’s Empowerment and the implementation of policies and programmes for; the advancement of quality of life for women; increase of their participation in National development Policies and other spheres of life; The promotion of gender equity and gender justice and the implementation of the Women’s Charter. But in reality most of these objectives are seldom realized and no one is really bothered about the actual empowerment of women to carve out their own development. They yet remain as is stated in the UN document, discriminated against and this violation of ‘ the principles of equality of rights and respect for human dignity, is an obstacle to the participation of women, on equal terms with men, in the political, social, economic and cultural life of their countries and hampers the growth of the prosperity of society and the family and makes more difficult the full development of the potentialities of women in the service of their countries and of humanity’