UNP to come out with manifesto for women

The main opposition UNP yesterday said it would come up with a special manifesto for women on March 10 and create history by becoming the first political party in the country to come up with such a manifesto.

Opposition Leader of the Western Provincial Council and UNP Colombo District Candidate Rosy Senanayake told a news conference yesterday that this manifesto would focus on several key areas.

This, she said, include increasing women’s representations in local bodies, provincial councils and Parliament, addressing the issues faced by women with regard to poverty and addressing issues faced by them in the post war situation which the country was in today. She said the party was focusing its attention in increasing women’s representation in local bodies to 30 percent while increasing it in other institutions according to a quota system.

She explained there were countries which had been able to establish successful governments by increasing women’s representation in Parliament. She said the women’s representation in Sri Lanka in politics was less than 5 percent though over 50 percent of the country’s population and 56 percent of the voters were women.

Ms. Senanayake said the party was looking towards giving a proper training to women who go to Middle East in search of greener pastures, like in Philippines.

She said it was sad to see there were no women in the ruling UPFA’s Colombo District list though Western Province records the highest representation of women in various high positions in the government and private sector.

By Yohan Perera and Dilini Algama for DailyMirror