Women's rights

THE International Campaign on Women Human Rights Defenders opened global consultation meeting in Sri Lanka recently marking a significant event in the history of Sri Lankan women human rights activists.

This will be another landmark of Sri Lankan women's struggle for adequate representation at decision-making levels in the country.

Nearly 200 activists from approximately 70 countries worldwide took part in this historic global gathering of women human rights defenders.

The consultation meeting, attended by the First Lady of Sri Lanka, Shiranthi Rajapakse, addressed experiences of women, who defend a range of human rights issues, as well as women and men around the globe who defend the human rights of women.

The event was significant for Sri Lanka because of several reasons. A special reason is challenge faced by Sri Lankan women human rights activists. As mentioned in this column on several occasions Sri Lankan women human rights activists are often labelled as lesbians or crazy women.

Campaign organisers who provide information to the media are partly responsible for this because they do not pay adequate attention to the word 'human' when they talk about women's rights.

This minor fact led to several serious problems, which became a big disadvantage for women when it comes to introducing legislation to safeguard women.

Certain groups and persons who believed that empowering women goes against Sri Lankan culture and that it is not a major requirement took advantage of this mistake made by the media.

The global rise in fundamentalism is one of the main topics that captured the attention of the participants.

This topic is very significant now than ever since the emergence of new fundamentalism related to certain religions and cultures. These affect women in a more serious way in the middle of Globalisation.

It is sad to see how some European countries encourage promoting women's human rights and anti US campaigns (after Iraq war) at the same time among their citizens completely ignoring the raising fundamentalism that mushrooming within their countries in silence !

Unfortunately scholars in those countries also focused on this anti-US trends and never noticed other strange things going on in their countries such as promoting fundamentalism, which deprive all human rights of women.

This is one of the main topics that should capture the attention of all women human rights activists around the world. All responsible persons should understand the difference between the actual religions and the newly found religion-culture mixtures, which stand against human rights.

One strange incident that took place in Orebro, Sweden recently shows how this evil system works silently. In Orebro a private school has commenced with the financial aid of a rich foreign non-Swedish businessman, which prohibited teaching music and arts (aesthetic subjects) to its students.

The students were forced to learn 'religion' for nine extra hours! The Swedish manager of the school was prohibited from listening to music, which made her quit from the post.

The relevant authorities responsible for schools and education were not aware of the existence of this specific strange school until an investigative radio journalist disclosed this peculiar institution through his programme.

The fundamentalists do have very strange theories to support their ideologies. The consultation focused on the challenges faced by women human rights defenders in their political organising activities including violence, harassment, and intimidation.

Conference participants promoted a more nuanced understanding of the experience of women human rights defenders, and devised practical strategies to address challenges such as the global rise in fundamentalism and militarism, and a climate increasingly hostile to the work of political activists in various social movements.