It was a brief remark during a worldly session of the Parliament. But for Harini Amarasuriya, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, is the moment when she realized that her country, destroyed not long ago by the leaders of strong men and their populist policy, had entered a potentially moment Transformer for women.
A male colleague (and “not very feminist”, as Dr. Amarasuriya describes) to say that the island nation could not put more women in the official workforce unless it officially recognizes “the care economy ” – Work work for others.
For Dr. Amarasuriya, it was “one of the greatest sensations” to hear the language in the government which had long been confined to activists or the largely forgotten gender departments. “I said to myself:” OK, all these years of fighting with you have paid, “she said, laughing during an interview in December at her office in Colombo, the capital.
Two years after the Sri Lankais got up and threw a political dynasty of which the professor had brought an economic ruin, the country is in the midst of a unique reinvention.
Anger stabilized in a quieter determination for the change of big. Through a pair of national elections last year, For the president And for parliamentThe former elite who had governed for decades was decimated. A left movement has increased in its place, promising a more equal company.
While the country’s democracy rebounds, opportunities open up to women.
Women were an engine of the protest movement which forced the president of Sri Lanka to flee in July 2022. When the country almost lacked money and fuel, the burden fell disproportionately on women, who assume The domestic load. Their rage sent them to the streets.
Now women are at the center of efforts to give the country sustainable protections against the whims of strong men. Women also do slow and regular work to shape a political culture that allows them to embrace a space.
Women, who represent 56% of the registered voters, were crucial for electoral victories at the end of last year by the power of the national people, a small left outfit.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the party leader, spent her life in the left -wing politics. He appointed Dr. Amarasuriya, sociologist and activist, as Prime Minister, the second most powerful post in the country. She is the first woman to organize a pole so high in South Asia who was not the wife or the daughter of a previous leader.
In September, while she was preparing to take office, Dr. Amarasuriya was breaking a cold when journalists from the New York Times visited her house, her walls covered with cat art. One of her four cats gave him the attitude, she said, simulating a soft trying to feed her.
She had an eye on political debates in the United States, where she spent a year as a student in exchange. “I guess I am one of these “Child -free cat ladies”She said with a smile, referring to a disdainful commentary by the president now vice JD Vance which has become a rallying cry for certain American women.
Dr. Amarasuriya has long preached that a more equal society cannot be carried out without making governance more friendly with women, injecting what it calls “feminist sensitivity” in the development of politicians.
The new government takes care of political debates on the improvement of parity of salaries and improves working environments for women. He hopes to increase the participation rate of women in the formal workforce to around 50%, compared to 33%. The ruling party doubles its efforts to politically mobilize women in order to ensure that this moment is not ephemeral.
It is “a change in a way you are thinking of the government, the way you think of power and authority,” said Dr. Amarasuriya.
Some of the first actions included the end of VIP culture around politics. The long motorcycles, large security details and sumptuous residences for ministers are over. The president reduced him to the traveling entourage. The Prime Minister’s complex, which, under its former occupant, has buzzed the activity of more than 100 staff members, now has a library calm, because Dr. Amarasuriya works with a dozen staff.
Outside the hall leading to his office, as well as on his desk, there are supervised drawings that the schoolchildren sent him. One showed Dr. Amarasuriya in a blue sari and its natural curls.
“Prime Minister Aunt,” said writing on drawing. “May the Buddha Lord bless you.
The real test will be the economy.
It stabilizes, strengthened by an increase in tourism and reductions in public spending after decades of leak spending. But it is not yet out of the woods.
Kaveesha Maduwanthi, 18, who works in a clothing factory, is one of the many who hope that the new country leaders will be able to find a way to stimulate economic growth.
Ms. Madowanthi earns around $ 100 a month. Her husband, a mason, brings about the same amount if he obtains regular work. She said that more than half of her salary went to the baby’s formula for her daughter, who had January 1. In addition to that, she and her husband pay for the food and medicine of the grandparents who keep the girl while they work.
“We don’t need the government to provide us with food-we can somehow manage,” she said. “What we need is a country where I have the space to make a little extra money so that I can invest in my daughter – perhaps a pair of gold earrings For his first birthday. “
Before the presidential election last year, the power of the national people, the left party, spent about two years trying to mobilize women like Ms. Madowanthi. Women, Dr. Amarasuriya and other party leaders argued at the time, sought someone to defend the problems that felt them firmly.
After the voters helped to raise Mr. Dissanayake to victory to the presidential vote, the party won an absolute majority in the parliament a few weeks later. In many districts, women have easily won.
Dr. Amarasuriya, running in Colombo, broke a record for votes that had been detained by Mahinda Rajapaka, former Prime Minister, President and War heroes and the older brother of Gotabaya Rajapaka, the president who was ousted in 2022.
The great victories of Dr Amarasuriya and other women broke a myth that politicians could not win, she said. His party collected funds centrally and distributed it uniformly to female and male candidates to overcome the drawbacks that women face.
The number of women in Parliament has doubled. However, the country has a lot to do – women still represent only 10% of the legislators. There are only two women among the 21 ministers in Mr. Dissanayake.
Dr. Amarasuriya and other leaders said they were disappointed with these figures. But the work of making inclusive political culture is not only a question of figures, said Dr. Amarasuriya, but also a “constant process” to influence and raise awareness of daily policy and governance.
The party says that he focuses on the entrenchment of his mobilization of women to make more management positions at lower policy levels. The objective, he says, is to remove the pretext that there are not enough leaders to be exploited for larger roles.
In 13,000 of the 14,000 Grama Niladhari, the smallest units of local governance in Sri Lanka, the party has established women’s committees, according to Saroja Savithri Paulraj, the Minister of Women.
One Sunday afternoon in a suburb of Colombo, a new committee was inaugurated. The organizers had developed door to door, collected information and created WhatsApp groups. A hundred people have passed on and sat in plastic chairs in the courtyard of a house.
Samanmalee Gunasinghe, the local deputy, took the microphone. “We were flower pots on the political scene,” said Ms. Gunasinghe. “They would take our votes and later throw us into fire, abandoning us with our children.”
Now she said, the female committees have created a space “where we can cry together”.