Poster from Equal Ground. This event also marked the launch of the campaign: A woman loving another woman is also a woman. Respect her rights. At the event, Ms. In addition, Bhoomi shared her experience as a trans-woman in Sri Lanka. The audience comprised of women diplomats, activists, academics and businesswomen. Have women leaders really contributed to increased political participation for women and increased rights for women in society? There are also the issues of reproductive control and sexual health, economic empowerment, and finally the importance of leadership. However, sexuality and sexual freedom are not subjects that enter easily into our realms of communication.
Introduction
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Despite the absence of formal data, these issues are all too familiar to women and girls, the survey confirms. The study also shines a light on the far-reaching effects this harassment has on the lives of women and girls, from their educations and livelihoods to their place of residence and personal relationships. Initiated in , the study included 2, individuals between the ages of 15 and Information was gathered through interviews, questionnaires and focus groups. Women reported experiencing a wide range of mistreatment on public transport, including leering, verbal abuse and unwelcome advances, but the majority of harassment was physical. Seventy-four per cent of women and girls reported they had been deliberately touched. Women in Sri Lanka — especially low-income women — rely heavily on public transport. Half of female study participants said they use it to go to work, and 28 per cent said it was how they travelled to pursue their educations. A quarter of survey participants said harassment occurred monthly. About 12 per cent said it occurred daily.
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The discourse of human rights in armed conflict situations is well adapted to respond to violence and violation, invoking internationally agreed principles of civil and political rights. However, in areas where the subject or domain of rights discourse is contested or controversial, human rights advocates appear less prepared to promote and defend such rights. Sexuality is one such domain. This paper explores the complex sexual choices women in Sri Lanka have had to negotiate, particularly widows and sex workers, within a context of ethnic conflict, militarisation and war. It argues that sexuality cannot be defined exclusively in terms of violation, even in a context dominated by violence, and that the sexual ordering of society may be subverted in such conditions. Newly widowed women and sex workers have had to negotiate self-determination as well as take responsibility for earning income and heading households, in spite of contrary community pressures. For women, political and economic rights are closely linked with the ability to determine their sexual and reproductive choices. The challenge to women's and human rights advocates is how to articulate sexual autonomy as a necessary right on a par with others, and strategise to secure this right during armed conflict and postwar reconstruction.
We implemented population size estimation of female sex workers FSW and transgender women TGW in Sri Lanka in using several approaches geographical mapping, service and unique object multiplier and a modified Delphi method during the stakeholder consensus meeting. Mapping was done in 49 randomly selected Divisional Secretariats, which provided a basis for extrapolation of size estimates to the national level. For the multiplier method, we used data from services of non-governmental organisations that FSW and TGW were in contact with, and surveys based on respondent-driven sampling. This study provided baseline estimates of 2, TGW in the country, with a plausible range of 2,—3,, which is 0. The results provide an important point for macro- and micro-level planning of HIV services, allocating programme resources and assessing programme coverage and quality. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
