LGBTIQ and Women’s Rights Organizations in Sri Lanka Collection

Organizational History: Equal Ground is an organization working on LGBTIQ rights in Sri Lanka. The longest running organization working on LGBTIQ rights in the country, it was founded in 2004. Equal Ground’s work orbits around a wide range of projects, events, and services. The group organizes the annual Pride celebrations in Colombo; it also offers counselling through hotlines for LGBTIQ people--including one specifically for lesbian and bisexual women and one for transgender individuals--and through Facebook messenger. The group also convenes workshops (including capacity enhancing workshops for LGBTQ people in rural regions), spearheads campaigns related to issues of gender, sexuality, and decriminalization, publishes materials in all 3 Sri Lankan languages, English, Sinhalese and Tamil, and creates advocacy films.. The group’s magazine, Equality (in existence since 2016) is a lifestyle magazine for Sri Lankan LGBTIQ people.

Women’s Support Group (WSG) was founded in 1999 to provide various kinds of support to lesbian and bisexual women and transmen. Two of its main projects were to generate livelihood opportunities for commercial sex workers who identified as lesbian by training them in English and in the other one, WSG collected pieces of garments from around Sri Lanka on which women drew their testimonies about domestic violence. These garments were then displayed on the International Women’s Day and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women across the country to give visibility to the issue of gender based violence. The latter project was called the Clothesline project and drew inspiration from similar campaigns in the US. The archive contains newsletters, pamphlets, meeting minutes and media coverage about both the projects.

Legal Backdrop of LGBTIQ struggles in Sri Lanka:

Equal Ground’s work takes place in a country that, as of 2019, still criminalizes homosexuality. The Sri Lankan Penal Code is similar to the Indian Penal Code. Just like India had Section 377 that criminalized homosexuality until recently, Sri Lanka has Section 365 and 365A. Section 365 criminalizes “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” and Section 365A states that ‘any person who, in public or private, commits any act of gross indecency with another person, shall be guilty of an offence’. Together, both these sections have been used to criminalize LGBTIQ communities. These laws are legacies of British colonialism, having their origin points in British buggery laws of the 16th century. Britain abolished such laws in 1967, India decriminalized homosexuality in 2018 and hence, human rights activists in Sri Lanka are demnding that their country should follow suit. However, there is a key difference between the Indian and the Sri Lankan constitution. This pertains to the judicial review of laws. The Supreme Court of India has the judicial power to demolish any law or any part of a law that is violative of the Indian Constitution. So for example, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was deemed violative of Article 13 of the Indian Constitution that stated that laws inconsistent with fundamental rights of Indian citizens were void. Section 377 was deemed violating the fundamental rights of equality and privacy of Indian citizens. However, in the case of Sri Lanka, Article 16 of the Constitution states that all existing laws shall be valid, irrespective of them violating any fundamental rights. The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka can review laws only when they are in the drafting or Bill Stage. Once the Bill has become a law, only the Parliament can change the law through new legislation. This makes legal activism around homosexuality in Sri Lanka more challenging as governments often give in to popular perceptions of morality. However, the Supreme Court has the right to interpret the Constitution even if it cannot review laws. So for example, Article 15 of the Sri Lankan Constitution imposes restrictions on the right to equality (Article 12) for Sri Lankan citizens. However, how is morality defined is quite ambiguous and arbitrary as same-sex relationships are deemed immoral. This is where the Supreme Court could use its interpretive powers and keep such relationships out of the ambit of immorality and indecency. This would be a remedy till the Sri Lankan parliament demolishes Section 365 and 365A.

Further Reading: https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/09/12/sri-lanka-should-take-challenge-lgbt-rights