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Women as leaders

The South Asian region has seen the highest number of women heads of government in the past forty years. Starting from our own Sirima Bandaranaike, we have seen the likes of women leaders such as the formidable Indira Gandhi of India, the mercurial Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, those two bitter rivals in Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia and our President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, lead nations for many years.

Yet the female child in this region remains highly disadvantaged. They are at the bottom of the economic and social pile, often abused, denied their basic rights and sadly bought and sold like cattle. In some parts of the region, girls are even robbed of their right to life, as parents who detect that the mother is carrying a female foetus opt for an abortion.

Clearly the mere fact of having female heads of government has not significantly improved the lot of women in South Asia.

But that does not mean women should be denied positions of leadership, in fact the urgent need is to increase their number in positions of power, in politics, business and in the services.

The situation in Sri Lanka has some parallels to what took place in Europe and the United States during the Second World War when the men went to the battlefront and women took on their responsibilities. During the conflict, women in Sri Lanka came to the fore, even carrying guns at the frontlines.

With their men dead or missing, many women have been forced into heading households and emerge from their traditional roles. They have to be mother and father, protector and breadwinner as well as homemaker.

Government statistics indicate that women head 21% of all households in the south. In the war-affected North and East, some experts believe the ratio could be as high as 50%.

The women now heading households have been forced into a leadership situation, and face numerous difficulties. Their situation calls for a separate set of policies that must emerge from government to meet their special needs.

This backdrop cries out loud for a strong female leadership to emerge that will grapple with the serious issues facing women. Such a leadership should be able to sensitise the nation to the existing crises and mobilise support from all quarters for this exercise.

The United National Front made an informal call to all parties in the fray at the last Local Government elections for them to nominate at least 25% women as candidates. No parties heeded the call, and in Local Government and other levels of government the percentage of women in positions of leadership remains dismally low.

In a country where 52% of the population are women, less than 4% of the members are women in our Parliament.

To increase women's representation, India has already enacted laws to compel political parties to nominate women to fill a third of their slate of candidates at the lower levels of government. This quota is to be extended to state assemblies and parliament in the future.

It is time Sri Lanka too drew up a roadmap to increase women's representation. Opponents of the quota are mostly men who do not want to give up their chances in politics and argue that parties need to pick winners at elections.

The current stench of corruption and violence that emanates from politics turns off many a woman political aspirant. Efforts must be made to improve the general atmosphere if female politicians are to be encouraged to enter the field.

Importantly the leadership at the top must realise that to improve the quality of government and representative assemblies in this country more women have to be trained to fill leadership roles.

Or else we will not be responding to the crying need of the hour, which is to empower the women of the nation.

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