Why Does Gender Inequality Prevent Progress towards Peace in Sri Lanka?
Analyzing Azar’s Model of Protracted Social Conflict
Saman Gunathilaka
University for Peace, International Peace Studies Dual Campus Program
February 15, 2008
Why Does Gender Inequality Prevent Progress towards Peace in Sri Lanka?
Analyzing Azar’s Model of Protracted Social Conflict
Introduction
In the 21st Century, many governments and organization are mainly concerned with gender perspective for peace-building activities. Gender imbalance and inequality in past and present societies provide much evidence to the creation of various social conflicts. The gender discrimination in the Sri Lankan postcolonial period influenced social conflict. In this situation, the power imbalance and deprivation of the Sri Lankan civilians led to many people violating the rights of women in order to gain power and opportunities. From a gender perspective, there is a general realization that women’s rights are being infringed upon. This paper examines the following gender related questions in order to explore the social structure in Sri Lanka: What kind of gender violence and discrimination exist in Sri Lanka? Why does that gender discrimination affect building for peace in Sri Lanka? How can we theoretically analyze the gender discrimination? and often recommendations for conflict transformation and management. The answer to the above issues, as they relate to the Sri Lankan social structure, can be understood through Edward Azar’s theory of Protracted Social Conflict (PSC). More specifically, Azar’s PSC theory contributes to explain the Sri Lankan social structure which prevented gender balance. The analysis concludes by summarizing the most crucial findings.
Definitions of Azar’s Model of PSC
According to Azar, a Protracted Social Conflict (PSC) is described as “…the prolonged and often violent struggle by communal groups for such basic needs as security, recognition and acceptance, fair access to political institutions and economic participation” (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse & Miall, 2005, p. 84). Azar also defined the following clusters of variables as preconditions for PSCs. These are the communal content of a society, deprivation of human needs, governance and the state’s role and international linkages.
Azar considered the communal content of a society the most important source of a PSC. He linked the conflict history and the colonial period where community groups are directly influenced by the colonial policy of divide and rule. In the post-colonial period, many multiethnic societies appeared which are dominated by a single communal group. This communal group ignored the needs of other communal groups, thus, breeding fragmentation and protracted social conflict.
In terms of deprivation of human needs, Azar mentioned that all individuals aim at fulfilling their needs through their collective identity group. Needs deprivation leads to increasing grievances, which individuals express collectively. He particularly referred to security needs, development needs, political access needs, and identity needs (religious and cultural expression).
Azar noted governance and the state’s role as the significant cause in the satisfaction or frustration of individual and identity groups needs. Four characteristics: incompetent, parochial, fragile and authoritarian, influence the protracted social conflict according to the unsatisfied basic human needs. The unsatisfied social groups are frustrated and feel marginalized and excluded from the social, economic and political participation. The political authority of newer and less stable states limited the policy capacity and political access needs of the dominant community – at the expense of all other identity groups. This monopolization of power of the dominant community results in “crises of legitimacy” as the state is not able to meet the political participation needs of the public.
At the same time, most PSCs are increasingly dependent on international linkages; that is, the state is shaped by economic and military dependency.
Definition of Gender
The report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) noted that gender involves “The roles and responsibilities of men and women and the relationship between them. Gender does not simply refer to women or men, but to the way their qualities, behaviors and identities are determined through the process of socialization” (2003, p. 8). The biological differences of men and women can be critically used to discriminate women’s rights in a patriarchal society. Men are key players of decision making processes because they are physically stronger. Women always dominate on their feminine characteristics. Also, sex differences have been used to justify reasons women were unable to positively intervene in peace processed in past decades. Strickland and Duvvury (2003) explained,
Despite cultural variations, there is a consistent difference between women’s and men’s gender roles based on power, e.g., access to productive resources and ability to exercise decision making authority. The power imbalance that defines gender relations influences women’s access to and control over resources, their visibility and participation in social and political affairs, and their ability to realize their fundamental human rights (p. 5).
Analyzing Gender inequality in Sri Lanka
Azar’s four clusters, communal content of a society, human needs, state’s role and international linkages are taken as analytical indicators to the study of gender in Sri Lanka. The analytical focus is on the gender-sensitivity of Azar’s clusters. That is, how each cluster is open to discuss gender and what gender-sensitive perspectives of all four clusters might look like?
Communal Content of a Society
The first cluster, the communal content of a society, refers to the colonial period, where community groups are blamed by historical challenges and colonial legacy of divide and rule. As a consequence, in the post-colonial period a single communal group or a coalition of groups emerged and dominated in many multiethnic societies.
In the British colonial period (1796-1948), there were two major changes that influenced the discrimination in Sri Lankan gender rights. First, the British introduced a new rule for land rights and second, they changed the laws concerning marriage, divorce and heritages.
According to the British new land law, the native and local population became a landless community. Many paddy lands were owned by Sinhalese and Tamil female in the Sri Lankan society before British colonialism. Also, the British introduced marriage laws to attain land properties. This rule helped to indirectly turn the ownership of land properties to male parties. As a result, women’s access to inherited land was dramatically restricted and women’s economic position and status was weakened.
Deprivation of Human Needs
According to Azar, the frustration and grievance will be increased by individual’s needs collection. This applies to the Sri Lankan society because female frustration can be seen quite often as a result of denial of needs by males. The security needs, development needs, political access needs and identity needs of women are discriminated in the Sri Lankan society. I discuss below each women’s needs which caused gender imbalance and inequality in the Sri Lankan society.
Security Needs
Although, different types of gender based violence and discriminations are occurred in Sri Lanka, these are difficult to discover due to high levels of underreporting and lack of documentation by the police and other stakeholders. Some of the most common forms are domestic violence, rape, psychological abuse, incest and sexual harassment (UNHCR, 2006, p. 17). Sri Lankan women are typically bound by social and cultural norms. Therefore, if husbands abuse or rape them, they accept this as a part of their marriage life. Cultural norms keep family problems within the family.
The number of households headed by women has been increased gradually in the Northern and Eastern part, as well as Southern part of Sri Lanka under the ethnic conflict situation. Their vulnerability makes them an easy prey to acts of abuse. Also, the social and cultural norms are often used to discriminate women’s rights and opportunity. For example, second marriage of widows or widowers is not accepted by cultural and social norms even it is legally accepted. This situation perhaps dooms them to loneliness forever. According to the Department of Census and Statistics (n.d.), “the majority of the household heads are widows and their educational level is comparatively lower than that of male heads” (p. 14). The less education qualification causes them to receive less job opportunity as well as financial dissatisfaction, and poor family lives.
Development Needs:
In Sri Lanka both men and women have equal access to free education from primary to tertiary under the national welfare system. Therefore, literacy rates of men and women are almost the same and the gap is decreasing over time. According to the Department of Census and Statistics (n.d.), “In 2001, male literacy rate was 92 percent while female rate was 89 percent” (p. 6). Further, the same author noted that the literacy rate of women in the rural sector and estate sector are lower compared to the women in urban sector (p. 6). Their comparatively greater mobility allow urban women to go to school, while the rural and estate women face various cultural and economic difficulties that obstruct their completion of the required schooling. Indian Tamil women work in plantations at an early stage in life. In general, Indian Tamil women in the estate sector have lower educational levels, literacy rates, health status and life expectancy than women elsewhere in the country.
Most women work in low-paying, low-skilled jobs and unemployment rate for women is higher than that of men. The women participation in the high skill and managerial sector is rare. The Department of Census and Statistics (n.d.) noted,
Women have entered the labour force slowly, but has shown a continuous growth lover the years… labour force participation rate for women which stood at 20.0 in 1963, has risen to 31.4 by 2003, reflecting a growth of over 50% within a time span of four decades (p. 8).
The same report mentioned that the unemployment rate of the men and women are 33 percent and 69 percent in 2003 respectively. Also, the highest rate of unemployment is found among women who have higher educational qualifications. In 2000, 61 percent of women with educational qualifications between grade 0-10 were employed while only 16 percent of women who have reached General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary Level. Majority are employed either as semi-skilled or unskilled workers (p. 8).
Political Access Needs
In regards to political opportunities, the Sri Lankan women have the right to vote. In fact, a number of Sri Lankan women have been elected to positions of power in the country. Some have even managed to win the highest seats in government. However, the political participation of women is quite low in comparing it to the overall women’s population. There were only 12 members out of 225 elected for Parliament in the year 2000. Also, in 2000, out of a total of 379 representatives in the Provincial Council (PC), only 15 were women (4 %). The percentages of women in the Urban Council (UC) and Municipal Councils (MC) were even lower at 1 percent and 2 percent, respectively. There were three women elected as Mayors. These were in the provinces of Kandy, Jaffna, and Nuwara-Eliya (UNECAP, n.d., p. 15). According to the PAFFREL and CMEV (2004),
One of the most serious problems in contemporary Sri Lankan politics is the shortage of women engaged in the political system. Though 52 percent of the population is female, the percentage of women in political office remains at 1.9 percent of all local and national government offices (p. 10).
State’s Role
According to Azar, the state’s role and state governance are important factors in satisfying or frustrating individual and identity group needs. In PSCs the monopolization of power by the dominant social group limits the state’s ability to meet the needs of all social groups. The role of state was transferred to the private sphere – to Sinhala families. These families were key players of all the control in political and economic organizations. There are two family related political parties in Sri Lanka: United National Party (UNP) and Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) which governed the country in 1948 to present (post-colonial period). These two parties applied their individual ideologies into the state body and dominated other’s opportunities such as access to political participation, and decision-making processes. The male members of these families represented the role of party leader. One exception can be made in the case of Chandrika Bandaranayike and her mother.
International Linkage
International linkages crucially affect gender discrimination in Sri Lanka. This discrimination emerges from labour immigrants/migrant workers and the Export Processing Zones (EPZs) or Free Trade Zones (FTZs). I will take a closer look at both examples starting off with labour immigration.
The migration rate of Sri Lankan women is considerably increased in the last decade. They worked mainly in the garment industries and as housemaids of the Middle East, East Asian and European countries. Most leave due to a high unemployment rate in Sri Lanka and relatively higher wages outside Sri Lanka. These women are often subjected to violence, and to appalling working and living conditions. The Centre for Women’s Research estimates that around 10 percent of the approximately 500,000 female migrant workers from Sri Lanka have been victims of some form of physical, psychological or sexual abuse (OMCT, 2002, p. 13).
Most of the women who have lower education particularly work within the garment industry in Sri Lanka’s Export Processing Zones (EPZs) where over 80 percent of the workers are women. Many of them are employed in the informal sector, where hours of work, wage rate, and work environment are largely unregulated. Women and girls working in the EPZs are also often subjected to sexual violence in the workplace and there have been reports that many of these women workers have subsequently been forced into prostitution either in brothels in Colombo or in the tourist centres in the coastal area (OMCT, 2002, p. 12).
Gender equality and Peacebuilding
The cultural norms, women marginalization, lack of political participation, lack of involvement of the decision making process, less economic opportunity, power sharing between men and women are critically affected for building positive peace in Sri Lanka. To achieve and maintain peace requires the participation and involvement of both male and female regardless of their class, age, race and ethnicity in the process of peacebuilding. Gender equality requires us to consider and value different aspirations, concerns and needs of women and men fully participating in social/cultural, economic and political spheres. This helps promote a democratic and peaceful society. Kebede (2005) described that “In talking about gender and peace it is critical to address the issue of unequal power relation and participation in decision-making between women and men, which are amongst the structural causes of social and political instability…” (p. 74). Therefore, the law and regulation need to be made strong to prevent the discriminations against women in the privet and public sector, while promoting women rights and their equality at different levels. In order promote these rights, participation of government, non government and privets sectors are very important. Thus, in order to achieve a peaceful and democratic society in Sri Lanka, gender equality and equal political participation need to be institutionalized in all sectors of the society.
Conclusion
The study tries to understand gender discrimination and vulnerability in analyzing social construction, social change and historical hierarchical power structures through Azar’s model of PSCs. In terms of identity as a social construction, it becomes clear that Azar has a fixed idea of identity and human needs. While this has been helpful in understanding the conflict in Sri Lanka, it could also be argued that Azar’s four clusters ignore the following underlying gender-specifics of PSCs: increasing domestic violence, gender specific needs, grievances and gender related interests and the changing of labour. This posed some difficulty in analyzing factors of gender discrimination. However, the analysis showed how Azar’s work recommends some gender-sensitive entry points to conflict analysis and conflict resolution.
Also, Azar’s model of PSCs helped to open up the social structure, gender discrimination and inequality situation in Sri Lanka. The role of needs, injustice and fears and identity of the parties and state-based approaches to conflict resolution play an important role most of social conflicts. According to Azar, the historical approach is a vital issue to the analysis, understanding and explanation of any social conflict. This approach provided a framework to understand the discrimination against women in the colonialism period and how the domination continues into the modern era. Azar’s four clusters help facilitate our understanding about gender as part of a hierarchical and hidden power structure.
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