COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
on the communities themselves to amend their personal status laws and that the
Women‘s Bill does not protect women and girls from all communities from early and
forced marriage.‖
20.15 UNICEF‘s The State of the World‘s Children 2011: Adolescence – An Age of
Opportunity 346 , dated February 2011, reported that in Sri Lanka the incidence of child
marriage for the period 2000–2009 (defined as the ―Percentage of women 20–24 years
old who were married or in union before they were 18 years old‖) was 12 per cent. It
also reported that the percentage of ―Girls aged 15–19 who are currently married/in
union‖ for the period 2000–2009 was 9 per cent.
POLITICAL RIGHTS
The main text of this COI Report contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February 2012.
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section
to 2 March 2012.
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20.16 The USSD 2010 report 347 noted that ―There were 10 women in the 225-member
parliament, two female ministers, and two women out of 11 justices on the Supreme
Court... There was no provision for, or allocation of, a set number or percentage of
political party positions for women or minorities. Women's participation in politics was
approximately 5 percent in the parliament and the provincial councils.‖
20.17 The UN Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women, Sri Lanka 348 , observed:
―The Committee is concerned about the extremely low level of participation of women in
politics and public life, including a low representation of women in Parliament, Provincial
Councils and Local Authorities, at the decision-making level and in the diplomatic corps.
The Committee is further concerned that no measures have been taken to encourage
women to participate in political life and that the State party attributes the low
representation of women to their own choice, their preoccupation with multiple roles,
high costs of the electoral campaigns and the lack of confidence of political parties in
the ability of women to garner votes.‖
See also Political system
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS
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20.18 Human Rights and Democracy: The 2010 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Report -
Section VII: Human Rights in Countries of Concern 349 , release on 31 March 2011 noted
346 UNICEF’s The State of the World’s Children 2011: Adolescence – An Age of Opportunity
http://www.unicef.org/sowc2011/pdfs/SOWC-2011-Main-Report_EN_02092011.pdf date accessed 31
May 2011, Table 9 & 11
347 US State Department 2010 Human Rights Report: Sri Lanka (USSD 2010), released on 8 April 2011,
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/sca/154486.htm , date accessed 11 May 2011, Section 3
348 UN Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women,
Sri Lanka 348 , 4 February 2011 http://www2.ohchr.org/tbru/cedaw/CEDAW-C-LKA-CO-7.pdf , date
accessed 25 May 2011, p4
349 Human Rights and Democracy: The 2010 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Report - Section VII:
Human Rights in Countries of Concern, released on 31 March 2011
139