Monday, 9 December 2013 00:00
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Child Development and Women’s Affairs Minister Tissa Karaliyadda seems to have caught a terminal case of foot-in-the-mouth disease. Not only is he prone to making narrow-minded, uninformed, sexist and buffoon-type statements regarding women in public, he has taken it to another level by saying Sri Lanka will not ratify international treaties assuring empowerment for women as it “goes against our culture”.
Karaliyadda cannot be forgiven for making such comments in Parliament for in addition to proving that is a borderline misogynist, he has also displayed appalling lack of knowledge regarding Sri Lankan culture. Sri Lanka’s customs have in many instances displayed progressive traits that should be furthered by the Government. In fact Sri Lanka’s women have voted since 1931 and had the world’s first woman Prime Minister.
Karaliyadda also seems to have forgotten that culture is a fluid and evolving entity. The moment it is frozen in his imbecile statements, it dies. Much like the fate of his limited intelligence. It is no wonder that gender activists are calling for his resignation, and looking at his track record, such calls are justifiable.
Under Karaliyadda’s watch Sri Lanka spun into a freefall of 16 spots in the Global Gender Gap in 2013. The report released by the World Economic Forum ranks Sri Lanka at the 55th point, showing the deepest worsening of political and economic empowerment for women in the entire region.
Economic Participation and Opportunity (from 105th to 109th place) and the Political Empowerment (from 22nd to 30th place) sub-indexes show how poorly women are empowered in Sri Lanka despite forming a massive part of the workforce.
The eighth edition of the report introduced by the Forum in 2006 shows 86 out of 133 countries improved their gender gap since 2012, with the area of political participation seeing the greatest progress. However, this sphere has gone from bad to worse in Sri Lanka where female representation is at a significant low. In fact even the Women’s Affairs portfolio has been handed over to a man who does not value the empowerment of women.
High levels of political violence during polls is another reason why female representation is low. The dark image politics has will not do any favours for promoting gender equality in politics and even though the first version of the ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ pledged a quota system for women, this was conveniently dropped in the subsequent edition.
Women have an even tougher deal in the work place. According to think tank Verite Research, only 31.2% of women participate in the labour force, half the number of men. But women do want to work, just not in Sri Lanka it would seem, as 52% of two million migrant workers are women. Sri Lanka’s economy literally relies on their sweat and blood, yet it refuses to empower them.
The high levels of rape and abuse among Sri Lankan women and the inability for Sri Lanka’s judicial system to provide swift justice to them would be another cause of concern. By some estimates, a woman in Sri Lanka is abused every 30 minutes and the involvement of high-level political figures along with an almost enshrined environment of impunity makes for poor reading.
Women are trapped in lower paying jobs, incapable of rising in their professions and getting their dues because of legal and attitudinal impediments, while Karaliyadda and his ilk believe this to be justice. It’s time Karaliyadda learnt that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
