'Ban's comments resonate well in SL context'

Ruwini Jayawardana

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's comment about the need to 'invest in rural women, eliminate discrimination against them in law and in practice, ensure that policies respond to their needs, give them equal access to resources and provide rural women with a role in decision-making' calls for action and resonates well in the Sri Lankan context, United Nations Sri Lanka resident coordinator Subinay Nandy said.

Subinay Nandy

"We see many widows coming back and securing their access to land, particularly in the North and East. The existing data of the Police Department indicates an occurrence of five rape cases per day in Sri Lanka. Eight nine percent of these are of young girls and boys," he said. "It is not just women and girls who have to pay the price of such gender based violence. All members of the society tend to lose when one half of humanity is violated in this manner. If we are to inspire the future of girls of today, we have to end violence against women and girls. This year's theme calls for action to stop violence as well as encourage the girls who will be women of tomorrow," he said. "It also calls to invest in girls' education which could contribute to a drop in early marriage and early pregnancy.

This is an area which we are very keen to strengthen our engagement," Nandy said. "We are working to protect children with the National Child Protection Authority. Through our joint programme, gender based violence we work with justice and social service providers to increase the capacity to respond to these issues. There is a lot more that we can do.

Significant attention is needed to build awareness for rights and protection on a local and global scale. United Nations Sri Lanka plan to start a five year programme in 2013 dealing these issues. If we invest in girls and inspire them to achieve their aspiration, we inspire the whole country," he said stressing the need for action to put an end to violence against women and children by enforcing the laws and conventions and by reinforcing gender sensitive moral conduct and cultural values.

The global theme for International Women's Day 2012 is 'Connecting girls, inspiring futures'. The United Nation's theme for 2012 is 'Empower rural women - end hunger and poverty'. This emphasizes the critical role for rural women in developed and developing nations. It focuses on their role in enhancing agriculture and rural development in improving food security and inducing poverty levels in their communities. Women comprise 43 percent of agricultural workers worldwide and in some parts of the world, it represents around 70 percent. However they continue to earn less than men for the same work and in many counties they also have unequal access to land and inheritance rights. They produce food but suffer most from malnutrition.