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Calling on all women to take up greater roles
By Chandani Kirinde
Women in Sri Lanka have to become more organised and must be involved in planning and implementation of national programmes, particularly those being implemented after the tsunami, Professor Dr. Christa Randzio-Plath, a former member of the European Parliament (MEP) and President of the Mario-Schlei Association said.

Professor Randzio-Plath who has been involved in programmes to empower Sri Lankan women since 1989, along with the Mario-Schlei’s local partner Agro Mart Foundation, said that despite the fact that women constitute more than 51 percent of the country’s total population, their representation in parliament is extremely insufficient, and women’s points of view are not being represented in important decision-making bodies.

“I was here during the last elections and all you could see on the walls were pictures of men. You have had women leaders, but they have not had an effect on the broad majority of the women. And the few women, who are elected to office here, are also those who come from politically connected families,” she noted.

Prof. Randzio-Plath served as a MEP for 15 years, during which time she served as the Chairwoman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. It was during her tenure in this post that the Euro was introduced as the common currency for Europe. She is also the founder President of the Marie-Schlei Association, a Non-Governmental Organisation that gives financial support to women’s projects in underdeveloped countries including Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Prof. Randzio-Plath noted that a quota system is necessary to get more women into elected bodies, because with men making up almost 90 percent in many of these institutions, they legislate for everyone, but civil society is not made of 90 percent men and ten percent women. “What would be the situation if there were 90 percent women and only ten percent men in these institutions? That too would not be an unnatural equation,” she said.

“It is the African nation Rwanda that leads the world in its ranking of women in national parliaments with 49 percent representation,” she said. Under a newly-adopted quota system, for which the Rwandan women lobbied heavily, the country’s women who suffered death, persecution, humiliation and abuse in the 1994 genocide are now taking an active role in the country’s reconstruction.

Prof. Randzio-Plath has been travelling more frequently to Sri Lanka since the tsunami struck, and was here recently to open three vocational training centres for women whose livelihoods were destroyed by the tsunami in Hambantota, Matara and Unawatunna. These were constructed at the cost of Rs. 53 million. However, she is concerned that not enough progress has been made with the construction of houses for the victims one year after the disaster. “The people of Germany gave Rs. 2 billion, but where are the houses?” she queried.

She said that the Sri Lankan women, who lost their livelihoods because of the tsunami and who work with her Association, were slowly recovering from the trauma, and were coming to terms with their losses and moving ahead with their lives. Prof. Randzio-Plath said it is wrong to look at women only as victims after a disaster, despite the fact that the majority of victims in such situations are women and children, because they play the central role in survival in the aftermath of such events.

She said that violence after disasters is increasing against women, because of the depression and frustration of men having no jobs. They also become victims of sexual violence and human trafficking. But women’s views are rarely sought by officials in planning and implementing rehabilitation programmes. From her experience it is essential to involve women, as they are the key to development, and also to recovery after natural disasters, she said.

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