| Shattering Rope (17 mins) |
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Focusing on women working in the coir industry in the Southern Province, this programme allows women workers to tell their own stories on economic and physical hardships they |
| confront everyday. They engage in a daily struggle to earn a living by producing coir rope from coconut husks. In the traditional method, husks are immersed in ponds for months before they are used, and women risk their health by working in these ponds. Even after they produce rope and other coir products with much hardship, they are at the mercy of middlemen traders and money lenders who control the market. And with some entrepreneurs introducing machinery for coir processing, these women now fear the loss of their livelihood. Machines can produce more coir in one afternoon than what a group of women will achieve in a month. |
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| A voice without a sound (13 mins) |
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Buried under the mass of coconut husks and rope -- and rarely heard -- are many tales of woe of individual women workers engaged in the coir industry. Women who have been |
| denied the basic legal and family rights guaranteed by the law. This programme features testimonies of three women, showing how their ignorance of rights have made them suffer in silence. Different women, different circumstances, but they are all helpless victims who do not know, or cannot assert, their legal rights. Theirs voices carry a sound, and are hardly heard. |
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| A teardrop of a harvest (13 mins) |
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Under the Accelerated Mahaweli Development Programme, thousands of families were settled in newly opened areas in the Dry Zone. They were given state land, and promised |
| irrigated water, infrastructure and facilities. Years later, many promises have not materialised. While both men and women struggle to make a living, women face additional hardships and discrimination, especially when they engage in casual employment in the agricultural sector. A common grievance: men get paid more for performing the same tasks. Women also have little or no access to training opportunities to learn new skills and techniques, and most women cannot control their hard-earned money, which their husbands often waste on liquor and gambling. Equality is a long way off for these women workers. |
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| An unspoken story (18 mins) |
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Although the prevailing laws of the land grant women an equal right to property inheritance, it’s not so in the Mahaweli areas. Traditional attitudes and official influence both favour |
| males to inherit land, leaving women with little or no access to property. After developing their land for years, women suddenly find that it can be taken away by fathers, brothers or husbands. This has made many women casual labourers in their own lands. Men decide, plan and carry out all functions of government, and women have no say. Government agricultural extension programmes support male farmers to obtain skills training, credit and subsidies; women are constantly overlooked. Women interviewed have stories that shatter the myth of women’s liberation and equality in Sri Lanka. Women are not only marginalised economically, but also sidelined when they seek legal protection against domestic violence. |
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| Towards a new Dawn (25 mins) |
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Exploited by middlemen traders and threatened by mechanisation. Abused, beaten or abandoned by husbands – and not knowing where to seek help. Being paid less than |
| men for doing the same work. Denied property inheritance rights. Living in fear, ignorance and in perpetual suffering. Is this how thousands of women in Sri Lanka enter the 21st century? When and how will justice be done to these women? How can they assert their economic, legal and basic human rights? Having surveyed in the previous programmes the reality of women’s rights in the informal sector, we look at possible solutions in this final programme. It summarises the concerns expressed in the series, and presents an agenda for lobbying and agitation to promote women’s economic and legal rights. The programme presents the expert viewpoints of two women researchers and activists who advocate reform. It leaves us with the hope that the future can yet be better for these women workers – but we have much to achieve to get there. |
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