Lanka Women

Parliamentary Standing Committee to which the Womens Reservation Bill was referred in May last year, got its third extension till the end of the next session of the Indian Parliament.
Highlights of the Bill (http://www.prsindia.org/index.php?name=Sections&id=6#)
Women’s Reservation Bill or  The Constitution (One Hundred and Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2008 seeks to reserve one-third of all seats for women [...]

June 2, 2009, Sri Lanka Institute of Local Governance Auditorium: At a meeting well-attended by 17 women political leaders and others and graced by Hon Dinesh Gunawardena, Minister and Chairman of the Select Committee of Parliament on Electoral Reforms and others, we were able to decide on the specifics of our demand for a quota for [...]

If you missed the Sammutthiya program aired from  10 pm to 11 pm on Mondays on Swarnavahini,you may get another chance.  Swarnavahini is  likely receive funds to continue the program for another six months starting in June.
The new program will continue to educate the public about necessity of a quota for women in the nomination [...]

Minister Maithripala Sirisena, Secretary General of the SLFP wants more women to contest in the upcoming UVA provincial council elections, according ot a report in the Lankadeepa today. This is good news.  The SLFP has shown the best record so far in terms of giving nominations to women in provincial elections. In the 2009 election [...]

At our meeting on the 12th attended by group 8 representing professionals (3), women’s groups (4), and women political leaders (1) we got to study the 2007 Interim Report of the Parliamentary Committee on Elections and we more or less agreed that:
“Overall, the committee’s proposals regarding elections seem to be an improvement to the existing [...]

There will be a meeting on May 12, Tuesday at 3:30 to assess the current legislative situation regarding women’s  representation in politics and to plan for a lobbying effort. Please contact lankawomen.net at 011-497-9795 or email coord@lankawomen.net to participate.
Agenda:
(1) Assess current developments in legislation (Sudantha Liyanage, participant, parliamentary committee on election reform)
(2) Submissions made by [...]

අපේ‍්‍රල් මස 19 වන දින කුරුණැගල ඉබ්බාගමුව මධ්‍ය විදුහල් ශාලාවේදී පවත්වනු ලැබු රණවිරු බිරිදන්ගේ 2009 වාර්ෂික සම්මේලනයේ දී සම්පත් දායිකා රීටා හේමපාල මහත්මිය විසින් තුන්සියයක් පමණ රණවිරු බිරිදන් අමතා පවත්වනු ලැබු දේශණයේ සංක්ෂිප්තයකි පහත දැක්වෙන්නේ….
‘‘ ජාතිය අවධිකරන්න අවශ්‍යනම් කාන්තාව අවධි කළ යුතුයි. කාන්තාව අවදිවන විට මුලු පවුලම අවදි වනවා. ඉන්පසු ගම අවදිවනවා. රට [...]

We have 5 more more councilors joining the rare breed of women councilors in provincial councils in Sri Lanka. These 5 women bring up the number of women councilors to 16  out of a total of 450 councilors. We have a long way to go but congratulations ladies, you have done your part.
The new councilors [...]

We women in Sri Lanka simply can not be happy with our representation in politics.  Only 5.8% of parliamentarians are women. Only 1.8% of local government reps are women. In other developing countries quotas of some form have been used successfully to increase women’s representation in government, local government in particular.
Women’s groups in Sri Lanka [...]