Sri Lanka's presidential election: Where are the women?
Source: Reuters
COLOMBO, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Not one of the 38 contenders in Sri Lanka's presidential election this month is a woman, a stark contrast in the Indian Ocean island where women make up more than half the voters and the workforce.
Well before more familiar figures such as Britain's Margaret Thatcher or India's Indira Gandhi, Sri Lanka gave the world its first female prime minister in 1960, electing Sirimavo Bandaranaike to a job her daughter also held 30 years later.
Women make up 52% of the more than 17 million Sri Lankans set to vote for a new president on Sept. 21, hoping to boost political stability and economic growth as the country grapples with its worst financial crisis in more than seven decades.
But since Sri Lanka introduced the universal franchise in 1931, the number of women in parliament has never crossed a threshold of 7%. Today, they are just 5.3% of its 225 members, and historically held only a fraction of cabinet positions.
Yet merely setting a quota of 25% among lawmakers, as was done in 2016, cannot be the only answer, said Harini Amarasuriya, a woman parliamentarian who called for a wider effort to bring more women into political life.
Read here the full article published by Reuters on 11 September 2024.
Image by Reuters
COLOMBO, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Not one of the 38 contenders in Sri Lanka's presidential election this month is a woman, a stark contrast in the Indian Ocean island where women make up more than half the voters and the workforce.
Well before more familiar figures such as Britain's Margaret Thatcher or India's Indira Gandhi, Sri Lanka gave the world its first female prime minister in 1960, electing Sirimavo Bandaranaike to a job her daughter also held 30 years later.
Women make up 52% of the more than 17 million Sri Lankans set to vote for a new president on Sept. 21, hoping to boost political stability and economic growth as the country grapples with its worst financial crisis in more than seven decades.
But since Sri Lanka introduced the universal franchise in 1931, the number of women in parliament has never crossed a threshold of 7%. Today, they are just 5.3% of its 225 members, and historically held only a fraction of cabinet positions.
Yet merely setting a quota of 25% among lawmakers, as was done in 2016, cannot be the only answer, said Harini Amarasuriya, a woman parliamentarian who called for a wider effort to bring more women into political life.
Read here the full article published by Reuters on 11 September 2024.
Image by Reuters