Poverty has a female face

Charmaine Fernando

Sri Lanka is not an exception across Asia where women still share an uncomfortable position in the development system, struggling to mitigate deprivation according to a joint UN and ADB report on Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

A woman’s face is still a distorted picture ridden with poverty. It goes to prove it despite that some countries have inched towards progress.

Most countries in southeast Asia have halved their extreme poverty burdens yet the other half surfaces a sullen, woman’s face according to Asia Pacific Regional Report of 2009/2010 on achieving MDG in an era of global uncertainty.

This is a neon flicker of warning and definitely a wake-up call despite the fact that some countries have struggled out to cope various economic threats and crisis, health hazards and pandemic shocks in addition to nature’s bombardment of disaster after disaster of flood, fire spewing volcanoes, and earth quakes of destruction and havoc. Asia woman’s face is showing strains, wrinkles and pain with hardly any time to cope with the realization of MDG or otherwise. In Asia, war wounds are still not healed and show signs of malignancy rooting in. Civil wars and tornados are still raining in on women and their children in Asia.

Recently, a felicitation ceremony was held at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, to recognize women who have been elected to Parliament to raise a voice for the sake of women. Women from all walks, from the cinema to teledrama to union activist to varied talented occupations who have entered the seventh Parliament were given a warm welcome by the Women and Media Collective under the auspices of Child Development and Women’s Affairs Minister Tissa Karalliyadda.

Wimala Liyanage, a senior faculty member of the Political Science Faculty of Peradeniya University was vociferous in her account stressing that Sri Lanka cannot attain the heights of an Asian Wonder without involving the contributions of a staggering 58 percent of female population in the country. Of this contribution, 40 percent should be allotted to those under the age of 35, she insisted. Gender equality and freedom for the woman to make her contribution to a country’s progress, without hindrance, should be in focus. For this situation to emerge and flourish, it should begin at provincial, establishment and individual levels, she reiterated.

Minister Karalliyadda outlined that it is best that a few efficient women enter Parliament than a crowd, trying to over power for the sake of making proportionate representation, because what matters ultimately is the productivity and issues addressed and reforms achieved. Nevertheless, more effective women’s voices adding to the weight and votes, in getting reforms sanctioned in favour and sake of the woman, cannot be denied or overlooked. To make the most of what we have finally got, we need to sharpen their effectiveness with training, allow exposure in to insights, afford facilities and finances to exploit the upliftment of the marginalized rural woman whose face read nothing but poverty and despair.