Roads to development - unveiled by her strength
Daupadhi
Jayaweera
Empowerment
exists when women can equitably participate in, contribute to, and benefit from
economic opportunities as workers, consumers, entrepreneurs, and investors,
and, equality exists when all women and girls have the same opportunities as
men and boys for education, economic participation, decision-making, and
freedom from violence.
While International Women’s Day is now largely aimed at
inspiring women across the world and celebrating their achievements, its roots
are in movements campaigning for better pay and voting rights. International
Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 every year. It commemorates the
movement for women’s rights.
While the first observance of a Women’s Day was held on
February 28, 1909 in New York, March 8 was suggested by the 1910 International
Woman’s Conference to become an “International Woman’s Day.” After women gained
suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there. The
day was then predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist
countries until it was adopted in 1975 by the United Nations.
Female representation
Sri Lanka is a country, which granted the franchise to
women even before many developed Western countries. As a result of this
background, Sri Lanka was able to produce the world’s first woman Prime
Minister as well as the first Executive President.
The Government has taken a policy decision to increase
the female representation in all political decision-making bodies. As the first
step, the Government in March last year amended the Local Authorities Election
Act to include 25 percent quota for women at the Local Government elections.
An Elections Department official said that female
representation in Provincial Councils is about 4 percent as of now.
Although Sri Lanka produced first prime minister of the
world, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1960 and her daughter Chandrika
Bandaranaike became prime minister first and later the executive president, the
female representation in Parliament is as low as 5 percent.
It is all the more unfortunate when considering that
this is lower than many other South Asian countries. Although Sri Lanka is high
in many human development indices, when it comes to women representation in
parliament, it is mere 5% , which is comparatively a lot less than Nepal
(33.2%), Bangladesh (19.7%) and India (10.9%).
Sri Lankan women are well aware of politics. It is not a
question of the lack of political awareness and empowerment among women for
such low representation, but they are extremely reluctant to enter the
political arena as they are hampered by the social norms. The general notion among
the public is that the political campaigns are run mostly by males. Campaigns
are known for rowdy acts, and distribution of liquor and it is no place for
even a decent male, not to talk about decent womenfolk.
When it comes to education, we see girls are taking top positions in almost all
examinations from Grade 5 Scholarship Examination to General Examinations on
ordinary level and advanced level. For the last few decades female graduates at
universities outnumber the males. Furthermore, the right to education has paved
the way for women in our country to secure highest positions in the
administrative system of the country. Hence nobody could say women do not have
the required competency and knowledge to contribute to national policy
formulation effectively.
New political culture
As President Sirisena often says, what is essential is
to nominate ‘clean’ and ‘pure’ candidates so that the general image of
politician could undergo a transformation and new political culture could be
established. In such a scenario one can expect qualified women entering the
field of politics in sufficient numbers.
Another objective of the present government is to
develop female entrepreneurship and to increase the female participation in
industries and production. Thus, special loan schemes and entrepreneur training
programmes have been activated in government and non- governmental level.
The final objective behind all these programmes is to
ensure the female of the country amounting half the entire population to be an
equal partner of a nation which possesses a high social development.
As the root cause to most issues, education is a
facility which empowers all the social scenarios into better live been. In Sri
Lanka education is compulsory up to a certain age. This has identified as a
great achievement of our country among all the de facto.
Girls’ education is a strategic development priority.
Better educated women tend to be healthier, participate more in the formal
labor market, earn higher incomes, have fewer children, marry at a later age,
and enable better health care and education for their children, should they
choose to become mothers. All these factors combined can help lift households,
communities, and nations out of poverty.
Girls’ education goes beyond getting girls into school.
It is also about ensuring that girls learn and feel safe while in school;
complete all levels of education with the skills to effectively compete in the
labour market; learn the socio-emotional and life skills necessary to navigate
and adapt to a changing world; make decisions about their own lives; and
contribute to their communities and the world.
All the beliefs of ours lie upon on this International
Women’s day celebration that these celebrations would usher an important debate
on these progressive social development objectives.
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