Sunday Times 2
Service to women since 1919
Zonta International – an organisation of women in the professions and in business was founded in Buffalo, New York, USA in 1919. This year Zonta International celebrates 96 years of global and local service while Zonta Sri |Lanka and Asia nears 50 years of service to women and children.
Playwright and journalist Marian De Forest who founded Zonta envisioned a strong network of professional and business women offering their expertise to their communities locally, as well as globally to help women reach their rightful place in their professions and in society.
At present Zonta International (ZI) with its headquarters in Oakbrook, Illinois, USA has more than 30,000 members in more than 1,200 clubs in 67 countries of the world. Zonta’s service to women is in empowerment and advocacy, in health, education, legal advice, equality of status, and in the prevention of any form of violence sexual or otherwise (mental, physical, domestic), or at the workplace. Zonta International also focuses on sexual abuse and rape as well as the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/Aids.
In Sri Lanka the first Zonta club was chartered in 1966 with charter president the late Lady Evelyn De Soysa and Mrs. Mano Muthukrishna Candappa as the charter secretary. At present there are five Zonta clubs in Sri Lanka: the original Zonta club now known as Zonta club 1 of Colombo, with two other clubs in Colombo, Zonta club 2 and 3, the Zonta club of Kandy, and the Zonta club of Negambo.
Sri Lanka belongs to Zonta International District 25, together with India, Bangladesh and Nepal with over 450 members at present. For the past several years Zonta International has been focusing on the prevention of the rising incidence of Violence against women, both young and old and the girl child all over the world.
The Zonta International motto in this respect is to achieve zero tolerance globally, with respect to this unacceptable problem. This however is a difficult task, due to different cultural and other issues in the different countries.
At present sexual abuse of the girl child too, is on the rise globally and particularly in South Asia. In Sri Lanka 6,000 cases of sexual abuse have been reported in 2015 up-to-date, with many horrendous cases ending up with murder of the victim as in the case of Seya.
Highlighting the enormity of this problem in our country focuses our minds on the harm done to the young children of our country unless immediate action is taken to prevent the occurrence. Various advocacy programmes have been carried out by Zonta Sri Lanka, focusing on educating parents, teachers, children and law enforcing authorities on protecting our girl children.
If an impact is to be made, it is important to focus on meting out suitable punishment to perpetrators of such crimes, by the enforcement of existing laws and even the ratification of new laws. At present in Sri Lanka with respect to cases of rape and sexual abuse it takes 9-10 years for judgment to be given after which time the assailant often goes free. This is unsatisfactory considering the mental and physical damage caused to a young child following this act. Fast tracking of such cases is of vital importance so that punishment could be meted out to the assailant as a deterrent for future perpetrators.
Zonta has also sought the assistance of males to speak out on how horrendous it is, to hurt and harass women and on the importance of respecting women as equal members of society to be treated with dignity and respect.
(The writer is a Past District Governor of ZI District 25)
| Zonta fundraiser: ‘Musical Colours on Two Pianos’ The Zonta Club III of Colombo, for the second time, presents two acclaimed Sri Lankan musicians Ramya de Livera Perera and Soundarie David Rodrigo in ‘Musical Colours on Two Pianos’ as a fundraiser for their continued initiatives to end Violence against Women and Girls.  Ramya de Livera Perera (right) and Soundarie David Rodrigo (left) The concert on November 12 at the Lionel Wendt Theatre at 7.30 p.m. will see Ramya and Soundarie performing the works of Bach, Max Bruch, Saint-Saens and Lutoslawski. The show will also feature guest artistes Ananda Dabare on the violin and Sureka Amerasinghe on flute. Tickets are available at the Lionel Wendt and Zonta Club III of Colombo urges all music enthusiasts and lovers of western classical music to support the cause. Zonta’s main aim is to launch an intensive awareness and advocacy campaign to reduce the incidence of violence against women in all sections of society. This will be combined with their ongoing efforts to provide for victims and children already affected, through their contributions to ‘Heavena’, the shelter for battered women and their children run by Community Concern. Some of the findings: Only 3.2% of those who admitted rape had been arrested, and only 2.2% had been jailed – or in other words in 96.5% of rape cases the rapist had experienced no legal consequences. Only 34% even said that they felt worried or guilty about what they had done. Both of those figures are the worst of any country involved in the study. Violence and abuse affect women from all strata of society every day. There have been a spate of shocking statistics about violence against women and children in the country recently, including the fact that a women is raped every 90 minutes in the country, 95% of women who use public transport experience sexual harassment, and 3-5 children are raped every day. The research was aimed at finding out why some men committed violence against women, and their conclusion was that gender inequality, gender norms and sexual or relationship practices are the deciding factors. Men who have experienced abuse themselves or have paid for sex are more likely to commit rape, but it is “influential narratives of masculinity that celebrate toughness, heterosexual performance” and “a man’s control over women” that have the most influence over a man’s capacity for violence. Since the vast majority of rapes are committed by persons known to the victim, the initiation and process of a rape investigation depend much on the victim’s willingness and ability to report and describe a rape. We still live in a patriarchal society. The executive, the judiciary and the legislature, as well as the public administration, the services sector and the private sector are dominated by males whose attitudes and cultural beliefs colour their thinking concerning gender issues. Consequently, they play a significant role in taking responsibility, providing accountability and opinion-making concerning gender-related violence at all levels of society. Consequently, men need to be gender sensitive and be conscious of their responsibility towards ensuring the rights, safety, dignity and empowerment of all females in society. The Zonta Club III of Colombo has organised several events to raise awareness for the cause. In August 2014, they presented Eve Ensler’s – ‘The Vagina Monologues’ performed by Poor-Box Productions, an award-winning theatre company based in Mumbai India. In November 2014, they collaborated with beauty and hair salons to create awareness within 16 Days of activism, initiated by the United Nations with Zonta through a campaign titled “The other side of Beauty”. In June 2015, a seminar was held for members of the judiciary, lawyers and law students on general awareness of Gender Based Violence (GBV) and women’s rights in relation to domestic abuse and rape organised by the Zonta Club III of Colombo, in collaboration with the Bar Association of Sri Lanka Bar (BASL) and the John Keells Foundation. | |