Focus on Rights
Challenging gender bias in Sri Lanka
By: Kishali Pinto Jayawardene
The Controller of Immigration and Emi gration (and
sundry staff serving under him) are to be congratulated. For observing
the rules of an anachronistically sexist logic with such dogged and beautiful
aplomb, that is. Consider this astonishing statement of official policy
divulged before the Supreme Court on Monday in an action challenging the
refusal of the Controller to grant a residence visa to a German male national
married to a Sri Lankan female citizen. Documents before the Court relating
to guidelines for Residence visas and stamped "Secret- for official
use only" made very clear why there was state hostility towards alien
men married to Sri Lankan women. As clause four of the guidelines read
with breathtaking simplicity "Sri Lanka follows a patriarchal system;
hence Residence Visas are normally granted only to female spouses of Sri
Lankans". Thus, the deserved congratulations. What else indeed is
fitting to greet this most enlightened and logical statement to emerge
from the Sri Lankan bureaucracy this side of the Millennium.
The Court was however not amused. Discriminatory cases of this nature
had been coming before the Supreme Court for quite some time, characterised
by the unashamed and unapologetic willingness of the Controller to come
to a settlement in each case while maintaining the discriminatory practice.
This time around, it was not that easy. In a testy order delivered from
the Bench, the immigration and emigration authorities were directed to
put their house in order by halting secret and discriminatory practices
in awarding residence visas. The petitioner, a German national by the name
of Bernard Maximilian Fischer was awarded his residence visa and the right
to work in the country.
It is devoutly to be hoped that Monday's order by the Court would put
an end to the long distasteful question concerning the granting of residence
visas to foreign male spouses of Sri Lankans. While foreign women married
to local men need only establish the fact of marriage to be given residence
visas, the opposite is true for their unfortunate counterparts. To satisfy
eligibility, foreign men must show their ability to earn a fairly substantial
amount of US$ 9,000 each year besides depositing a sum of US$ 25,000 in
a bank that cannot be released except with the recommendation of the Controller.
Forbidden to seek employment in Sri Lanka, they cannot be dependent on
their wives, who are in turn looked upon as being totally and insultingly
incapable of being financially independent and supporting their husbands.
Caught up in this situation and refused a residence visa (literally) on
the basis that he was unfortunate enough to be born a male instead of a
female, Fischer decided to go to court for several reasons. Having come
to Sri Lanka as a tourist in 1996 and fallen in love with a Sri Lankan
girl, he married and then returned to Germany shortly thereafter. Their
stay abroad however was short lived due to the fact that his wife became
homesick and within a few months, they returned home. He then applied for
a residence visa which signalled the start of his troubles. Unable to show
financial stability to the extent demanded by him, his efforts to explain
this discrimination to the staff of the Department of Immigration and Emigration
were of no avail and letters written by him to the Controller went unanswered.
The final indignity of being informed that his tourist visa would also
be cancelled within two months was what finally decided Fischer to come
to court. He was indeed amply rewarded for his efforts.
Meanwhile, the disclosures in Court on Monday of a secret and unashamedly
discriminatory policy regarding the granting of residence visas in Sri
Lanka is bound to have ripple effects in the months to come. For the past
several years, the country had been questioned on these practices by international
monitoring bodies, most notably before the Human Rights Committee in Geneva.
State representatives had cried themselves hoarse denying the official
existence of such a hostile policy, while admitting only a few individual
cases of "chance discrimination". In the face of documents now
part of the court record in the Fischer case, such protests will no longer
be valid. It will be wise therefore for the Immigration and Emigration
authorities to acknowledge mistakes of the past and publicly amend residence
visa guidelines before Sri Lanka's 4th periodic report comes up for discussion
before the Committee next year.
This is not all that is wrong however. Along with discriminatory practices
relating to the issuance of residence visas, gender bias continues to be
horrendously apparent in the very manner in which Sri Lankan citizenship
is transmitted to children. Following strong national and international
pressure that Sri Lanka amend its Citizenship Act in order that Sri Lankan
women be able to transmit citizenship to their children, a privilege currently
reserved only for Sri Lankan men, proposals made by the Law Commission
some five years back suggested that Sections 4 and 5 of the Act be amended.
" ………….these provisions are an infringement of the fundamental
rights to equality before the law and freedom from gender based discrimination………….the
principle of gender equality is now widely accepted and steps are being
taken in many fields to ensure it. Furthermore, the State has pledged itself
through the Women's Charter to take all appropriate measures including
legislation for the purpose of assuring to women 'human rights and fundamental
freedoms on a basis of equality with men'" the Commission reminded
in a tightly worded discussion paper on reform.
Concerns were raised about practical difficulties confronting Sri Lankan
women who marry foreigners but who cannot bring up their children as Sri
Lankan citizens even if they are subsequently divorced, separated or widowed
and resident in Sri Lanka.The proposals of the Law Commission were met
with disfavour by the authorities precisely for the same reasons that are
now publicly revealed as compelling discriminatory practices relating to
the granting of residence visas. The Ministry of Defence (the ministry
in charge of citizenship, immigration and emigration) warned against marriages
of convenience where Sri Lankan women would sell themselves to foreigners.
The reform proposals have now been forgotton and the discriminatory provisions
in the Citizenship Act continue regardless.
The catch is that unlike administrative practices ruling the granting
of residence visas to foreigners which have now been legally challenged,
the offending provisions of the Citizenship Act cannot be brought before
the court. This is because the Act was in existence before the present
Constitution, the provisions of which keep in force all existing laws and
bars court interference, even though the laws in question may be highly
unconstitutional. Reform can only be through Parliament and in the absence
of strong and sustained pressure, this possibility seems unlikely.
inside the glass house:
Balkan crisis-a distraction
By: thalif deen at the united nations
NEW YORK— A rash of wars, border disputes, ethnic
conflicts and separatist insurgencies have continued to sweep across parts
of Africa, Asia and Europe.
But international interest in these deadly conflicts is being dictated—
and manipulated— primarily by the world's news media.
"We need headlines before we take action," complains Hilde
Johnson, the Norwegian Minister for International Development and Human
Rights, who points out that international news organisations seem to have
the ability to handle only one global crisis at a time.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan admits that the war in Kosovo has completely
marginalised the ongoing conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa.
The mainstream media — including some of the major US television networks—
have been leaving Africa in droves and pitching their tents in the world's
new battle ground: Yugoslavia.
Addressing a press conference last week, Annan appealed to journalists
to get engaged in what he called "preventive journalism."
"When you identify an issue that is likely to blow into a crisis
leading to bloodshed and conflict, keep reporting it, thus forcing policy
makers and leaders to act on it before it explodes," he said.
"Stick with the story," he advised reporters, "Don't
go away when the blood stops flowing."
But in Africa, the news reporters and TV crews have bailed out even
before the blood-letting has ended.
"In these Kosovo-dominated times, it is vital to ensure that catastrophes
and conflicts affecting thousands and millions of people in other parts
of the world are getting their rightful attention," Johnson told a
seminar on conflict resolution last week.
She said that although the media seemed able to deal only with one conflict
at a time, the international community had an obligation to address the
magnitude of human suffering.
Annan said the world has "completely ignored" the fighting
in Congo-Brazzaville, Angola, Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea— although these
are wars "hardly less murderous" than the conflict in Yugoslavia.
Africa had the largest share of conflicts, but "our minds are focused
especially on what is happening in Europe," he said.
Annan admitted, however, that the genocide in Rwanda and subsequent
conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo "have at least received
world-wide publicity, even if far too little effective international action."
All other wars in Africa had been neglected by the international community,
he declared.
The 14-year-old conflict in Sri Lanka pales in comparison with the death
and destruction in sub-Saharan Africa.
In the first four months of this year, renewed fighting in Angola had
displaced 780,000 people, bringing to some 1.5 million the number who had
been driven from their homes.
The conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, "where human wave attacks
have produced thousands of battlefield casualties and deaths", had
displaced more than 550,000 people.
During the eight-year conflict in Sierra Leone— "characterised
by brutality, rape and murder"— about 440,000 refugees poured out
of that West African country into Guinea and Liberia. A further 310,000
people were displaced within Sierra Leone.
Since 1983, Africa's longest running civil war in Sudan has caused nearly
two million deaths.
"In Africa as a whole, there are now some four million refugees,
and probably at least 10 million internally displaced persons," Annan
pointed out.
The present humanitarian crisis in South Eastern Europe "acute
and tragic as it is, must not divert attention and resources from other
emergencies in Africa, in the Caucasus, in Central Asia and elsewhere,"
he said.
"Nor must it detract from our attention the consequences of a great
many natural and environmental disasters worldwide."
Africa accounted for more than half of all war-related deaths in the
world. Breaking the vicious circle of violence poses formidable challenges.
Besides the two million deaths since 1983, Sudan accounted for some
four million internally displaced persons and one million refugees. It
far exceeds the total number of people affected, for instance, in the Balkans
till now.
Last week Annan also wrote a letter to the leaders of the world's major
industrial nations— who will be holding a summit meeting in Germany in
mid-June— warning them that the crisis in Yugoslavia should not also detract
them from the global economic crisis that is threatening the stability
of the world's developing nations.
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