By Yenuli Ranaweera
In a landmark move towards gender equality, Sri Lanka introduced two groundbreaking bills at the beginning of 2024—the Women Empowerment Act and the Gender Equality Act. These legislative efforts aim to address the systemic inequalities faced by women and marginalised genders in Sri Lanka. While the Women Empowerment Act was successfully passed in June 2024, the Gender Equality Act encountered significant resistance, highlighting the deep-rooted societal and cultural challenges that persist. This article explores the implications of these bills, the opposition they face, and the urgent need for legislative reform to ensure true equality.
The Women Empowerment Act: A Step Forward
The Empowerment of Women Act seeks to promote equality for women. The act also poses objectives of enforcing obligations under international conventions such as CEDAW, ICCPR, and ECOSOC, ensuring the equal representation of women in decision-making structures and positions at every level within the government and conducting public education programmes relating to all aspects of empowerment of women including gender equality.
One of the main objectives is establishing the National Commission for Women, it seeks to create a dedicated body to address issues related to women’s rights, including investigating violations and formulating national policies for women’s advancement and empowerment. The President appoints the commission, five members of the commission are recommended by the Constitutional Council, and two members are recommended by the Women Caucus of Parliament appointed by the Speaker. The Commission has the authority to address violations of women’s rights. It is responsible for organizing programs to raise awareness and spread information about women’s rights. Additionally, the Commission is tasked with developing a National Policy for the advancement and empowerment of women, which must be submitted to Parliament for approval via the Cabinet of Ministers.
The Gender Equality Act: Controversy and Challenges
The more controversial of the two bills, the Gender Equality Act was presented on 9th May by the Minister of Women, Child Affairs, and Social Empowerment. The Act states “The Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka recognizes that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and are entitled to all rights and freedoms without distinction, including distinctions based on gender, and provides that the State shall ensure equal opportunity to all persons irrespective of such person’s gender, sexual identity or orientation”
While recognising that there is a long way to go to achieve full equality of rights and opportunities between men, women and persons of transgender minorities, the Act sets out its objectives as follows. Promoting the right to equality as set out in the United Nations Charter and enforcing the obligations undertaken in relation to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and other applicable Conventions, Treaties, Agreements and other relevant international instruments and also establishing the office of a Gender Equality Commissioner
The bill was subsequently challenged in the Supreme Court and on 7th June, the Supreme Court has determined that the Gender Equality Bill is inconsistent with Article 12 of the Constitution. The court ruled that the bill cannot be enacted into law unless the proper procedures outlined in Articles 83 and/or 84, read in conjunction with Article 80 of the Constitution, are followed. This procedure requires a two-thirds majority vote from the entire number of Members of Parliament (including those not present) in addition to approval through a referendum.
The Urgent Need for Change: Why These Bills Matter
World Bank ranked counties using the marks each country got based on research conducted under the theme Women Business and the Law 2023. Countries were scored under different categories with scores out of 100. Sri Lanka scored 100 in areas of constraints on freedom of movement and legal constrained related to marriage. However with regards to laws and regulations affecting women’s pay the country scored a dismal 25 and on laws affecting women’s work after having children an even lower 20. Overall the country scored 65.3 and ranked 150 out of 190 countries.
Given this context, I would like to take this opportunity to look at the opposition for these bills as well, to see if they hold any merit. Regardless of whether these bills specifically will fulfil the purpose, there is no doubt that there is a severe lack of equal opportunities presented across the population based on gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. Before we are divided by any such classification, we are human beings. We are all Sri Lankan. While a huge part of reaching for equality rests on a cultural shift, these bills and legislation could act as a stepping stone.
One argument brought up is that this is Western world propaganda. As a woman myself, it is laughable that so many in this country see granting opportunities for equality and the ability to make choices that affect individuals to a greatly personal level as purely a Western concept, especially given that the country and the culture seem to boast their reverence for women.
The main argument against both these bills is that they would promote the legalisation of abortion, prostitution and for the gender equality bill specifically, same-sex marriage. Those who opposed these bills have argued that the country already has in place laws that grant equal rights to all and therefore a specific gender equality bill is unnecessary. However, they seem to forget that regardless of laws and regulations many women and people who do not identify as cisgender or heterosexual undergo constant harassment, in public and even by law enforcement that is supposed to protect them.
Women’s organisations reported Police and Judiciary responses to rape and domestic violence incidents and cases were inadequate. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) reported many Police officers did not have sufficient gender sensitivity training to deal with survivors of sexual violence and there was a lack of Tamil-speaking judicial medical officers.
Even before the pandemic, the Women’s Wellbeing survey shows that 1 in 5 (20.4%) women in Sri Lanka have experienced sexual and/or physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime; and 1 in 4 women (24.9%) in Sri Lanka have experienced sexual and/or physical violence since the age of 15.
US’s ‘2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Sri Lanka’ noted that the existing law criminalised gender impersonation, which, according to activists, the Police had occasionally used to harass transgender persons.
The US country report also states that some members of the LGBTQI+ community reported being refused employment or forced out of work due to their sexual orientation, while transgender persons had continued to face societal discrimination including mistreatment and discrimination when accessing employment, housing, and healthcare.
Another argument is that these bills normalise same-sex marriage and sodomy and propose teaching them at school. While noting that the gender equality bill makes no mention of sexuality but rather that men women and those of transgender minority, ignorance will not do anyone any good. Setting aside the debate of whether these topics should be discussed at school, what good would it do for anyone to grow up as a global citizen without even the slightest knowledge of the existence of those who are beyond the gender norm that the country and the culture have perpetuated for centuries? This wilful ignorance will only lead to hate and fear which we can all agree is hardly the desired outcome.
It should also be noted that legislation in Sri Lanka is largely made by men. And in a patriarchal society, the concept of the ideal woman is also the woman that is ideal for a man. Significant traits prescribed by men for women included chastity, silence, modesty, reticence, sobriety, and obedience. Then one has to wonder whether the opposition to these bills has patriarchal and misogynistic roots. As mentioned previously, some have said that these bills promote the normalisation of abortion, even though neither bill refers to it. Is it that empowering women, and giving them a voice to express their opinions would lead to abortion? And while whether legalising abortion may be a debate for another time (although, when that will be or if that will ever be is questionable), should women not be the primary focus of it? After all, the physical and mental toll that childbirth takes on a woman is significant. Shouldn’t it be their voice that is given the most room? After all, it is a woman who would carry a child for nine months and most likely be the primary caregiver for the rest of her life.
Of course that is not to say that these proposed bills are perfect. According to MP Dr Harini Amarasuriya, the Executive and a small group that surround him draft and present such bills without holding a broad dialogue that is needed. One could argue that despite best of intentions the discussions around the bill are largely from a male-centric point of view. After all, considering that there are only 13 female MPs currently serving in the parliament out of 225, this is not a surprise. One cannot disregard the sensitive nature of these topics and weak bills with vague clauses that are scrutinised to an inch will only harm the marginalised communities that they are supposed to help.