Most Sri Lankan women travelling in public transport are sexually harassed:Report

Ninety per cent of women travelling in public transport are sexually harassed and this appears to be a deterrent for women accepting jobs that involves long distance travel, according to a World Bank Report on “Getting to Work: Unlocking Women’s Potential in Sri Lanka’s Labour Force”

This report was discussed at a forum held at Sethsiripaya, Battaramulla last week. It was compiled by Jennifer L Solotaroff, Senior Social Development Specialist; George Joseph, Senior Economist and Anne T Kuriakose, Senior Social Development Specialist from the World Bank.

Explaining the report, Ms. Solotaroof said that women are still under- represented in technical and vocational educa- tion and training and apprenticeships despite gender parity in formal education. She said that men far outpace women in securing high-skill jobs, even with same education levels and is worse since the end of the conflict.

Overall, she said, young women in the study sample also receive less “moral support” and career guidance from information providers such as parents, compared to young men.

The research findings in the report, she said indicated that women face discrimination and gender bias and do not have the same job opportunities as men with same education and other qualifications. There is gender-based discrimination in the job market despite similar levels of education as employer preference for hiring men over women is pervasive and is more pronounced at managerial and skilled levels.

She said that in Sri Lanka there is high unemployment specially among women younger than 30 years in labour force participation and though shrinking, wage disparities between the sexes persist and poverty is not the sole driver of women’s labour market participation in Sri Lanka while the poorest women may be bearing the brunt of worsening labour market outcomes.

Marriage becomes a reason for women to leave the workforce, she said, adding that they normally stay home to care for children and there is a general disbelief and low acceptability of professional childcare, according to the report. Sexual harassment in the workplace is also a serious problem and a major deterrent to women taking up employment.

A significant challenge is to increase female participation in the labour force as this number has decreased to 36 per cent in 2016 from a figure of 41 per cent in 2010 despite the country recording steady economic growth, Ms Solotaroff, quoting the research findings, indicated.

The report indicated that it is imperative to increase female participation in Sri Lanka’s labour force as the country is moving towards an aging population.

During the panel discussion, responding to the queries from the audience, Chiranthi Cooray, Chief Human Resources Office, HNB and Chairperson, Prime Minister’s Task Force for the FLFP Strategy, said that at her bank more than 37 per cent of the employees are women and their target by 2020 is to increase that figure to more than 50 per cent.

Some top positions in HNB are held by women and very soon they would see that the CEO of the bank would be a woman and she said that even in the Board of Directors there is a very strong presence of women.

She said that their microfinance portfolio has 31 per cent women and they are attempting to upgrade those women from microfinance to SMEs under a structured programme.

The report contains recommendations to tackle the problems and issues that emerged during the survey.

A panel discussion followed the presentation of the report with the involvement of Dr. Dileni Gunewardena, Professor, University of Peradeniya; Ms. Cooray and Carmen Niethammer, Programme Manager, Women in Work, International Finance Corporation and it was moderated by Kamani Jinadasa.

Chandrani Senaratne, Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Affairs and Valerie Layrol, Senior Operations Officer, World Bank also spoke.