NAME OF ORGANIZATION:

Ministry of Women’s Affairs

ADDRESS:

No. 177, Nawala Road
Narahenpita
Colombo - 5
Sri Lanka
Tel: (94 1) 591294
Fax: (94 1) 591294
Email: mwa@sltnet.lk

STATUS:

Governmental

HEAD OF ORGANIZATION:

Secretary

YEAR OF ESTABLISHMENT:

A separate Ministry for Women’s Affairs for the purpose of strengthening women’s development was established at the cabinet shuffle in June 1997.

LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY:

Authority given by the gazette notification at the inception of the Ministry.

OBJECTIVES AND FUNCTIONS:

Objectives:

* Improving the social economic status of women.
* Enhancing knowledge and awareness on women’s issues.
* Guaranteeing equality of women and elimination of all forms of discrimination.
* Combatting violence against women.

Functions:

* Catalysing government and NGOs in mainstreaming gender.
* Formulating implementing and monitoring of policies programmes and projects for empowerment of women.
* Networking with government, NGOs, media and donor agencies on women’s empowerment.
* Implementing, coordinating an monitoring projects and programmes through government and NGOs for Early Childhood Development.
* Implementing programmes and network with other organizations on combatting violence against women.
* Implementing and monitoring the Women’s Charter, the Policy document on women.

MAJOR ACTIVITIES:

The Ministry has prepared a Six Year Plan for the period commencing from 1999-2005 covering the following five thrust areas.

Entrepreneurship Development
The purpose of this programmes is to promote economic and social status of women through development of small scale enterprises by providing technical know how, credit, and link up with private sector organizations.

Social Mobilization
This programme is to expand forming women’s societies to cover a large number of Grama Sevaka divisions, in order to empower women by providing leadership training and conducting awareness raising programmes.

Violence against Women
The programme of Violence Against Women covers legal literacy programmes for rural women, publicity programmes through media; conducting competitions among the masses; establishing counselling centers; strengthening the police desks on women and children and working with NGOs for effective enforcement of law.

Gender Sensitization
The programme covers conducting Gender Sensitization training among officers at the national and peripheral levels.

Early Childhood Care and Development
This programme focuses on home based Early Childhood Development training of pre school teachers and establishing day care centres.

A project to enhance the capabilities of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is being carried out with UNDP assistance. The main purpose of this programme is to facilitate gender mainstreaming in policies, programme, projects and legislation in the government sector. Activities of the project cover gender training, establishing a National Resource Center at the Women’s Bureau, strengthening the complaints centre of the National Committee on Women, developing a media strategy and implementing pilot projects in the rural sector.

MAJOR PUBLICATIONS:

Journal:

* Kantba Saviya, (in Sinhala), quarterly.
* Solidarity, SAARC Women's Journal, (in English)

STAFF: