The issue
Women’s representation and participation in leadership in Sri Lanka remains abysmally low. At national levels of government, there is only one woman in the Cabinet of Ministers and only 5.3 per cent of Parliament members are women. The representation of women legislators at the national level has never exceeded 7 per cent throughout Sri Lanka’s electoral history since 1931. While Sri Lanka has legislated a 25 per cent quota for women’s representation in local government, women in these positions are often kept from meaningful leadership through harassment, exclusion, and dismissal. In the upcoming years, even as the greater participation of women becomes more relevant in crisis, it is likely to regress due to negative public perceptions of the capacity of women to lead and support recovery from crisis.