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Laudable measure for women

There was encouraging news for women's organisations countrywide yesterday in a news report we published, quoting sources at the Women's Affairs Ministry as saying that many political parties had responded positively to their request to increase the level of participation of women in the upcoming local government poll. Apparently, these political parties had agreed to the Ministry's requirement that twenty percent of contestants in the parties' nomination lists be women.

"The response we have received to this request has been most encouraging", Ministry sources said in connection with this major initiative aimed at boosting women's political participation. This development should be welcomed by progressive opinion because the degree of women's participation in politics is a pointer to not only local society's increasing sensitivity to gender issues. Increasing participation in politics by women is also a gauge of a country's democratic health and the inclusive character of its democratic institutions and practices. For, this is a day and age when discrimination against women and other vulnerable groups in society, in all its forms, is decried and shunned.

As far as Sri Lanka is concerned, women are no strangers to politics. Women have been and are holding high public office in this country. In fact, women have figured in politics from the time Sri Lanka achieved universal adult franchise, decades ago. However, extraordinary analytical skills are hardly necessary to ascertain that this sprinkling of women in politics is not synonymous with the vast majority of women in this country, in terms of socio-economic background.

While Lankans could be proud of the achievements of some of these women, who blazed many a trail in public life, it would be in the interests of democracy and fairplay to ensure that more and more women, from varied walks of life, enter the democratic process and vie for public office. These aims could be achieved to some degree through the new measure aimed at increasing women's participation in the local government polls.

Opening up more democratic space for women's participation in politics, however, cannot stop at the local level. This process has to be extended to the national level if it is to be meaningful. Women can no longer be considered a subordinate group in Lankan society. Our commitment to democracy should ensure that women in increasing numbers are politically empowered and permitted to exercise their inalienable rights. 

• Editorial of  The Observer - Illegal firearms 21.02.2002:
  

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