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LGBTIQ and Women’s Rights Organizations in Sri Lanka Collection

 Collection
Identifier: Tretter-298

Scope and Content

This collection contains materials related to the struggle for LGBTQIA rights in Sri Lanka, including records of some Sri Lankan social justice organizations, like Equal Ground (an LGBTQ organization founded in Columbo in 2004) and The Women’s Support Group (an organization that works on issues of violence against women, founded in 1999). The collection also contains full issues of Sri Lankan magazines that feature articles about LGBTQI individuals, pride celebrations, and other relevant topics.

The collection is organized into five series, as follows:

1. Materials documenting the work of Equal Ground 2. Materials related to the work of ILGA (International Lesbian and Gay Association) 3. Materials documenting the work of the Women’s Support Network 4. Ephemera 5. Publications featuring articles about Sri Lankan LGBTQI topics

Dates

  • 1999-2016
  • Majority of material found within 1999 - 2006

Creator

Language of Materials

Collection material in English, Tamil, and Sinhalese.

Restrictions on Access

Items in this collection do not circulate and may be used in-house only. Materials will be retrieved from and returned to storage areas by staff members.

Restrictions on Use

Please contact staff regarding copyright status of these materials. Researchers may quote from the collection under fair use provisions of the copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).

Historical Note

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

Extent

1 boxes (1 linear feet)

Abstract

This collection contains materials related to the struggle for LGBTQIA rights in Sri Lanka, including records of some Sri Lankan social justice organizations, like Equal Ground (an LGBTQ organization founded in Columbo in 2004) and The Women’s Support Group (an organization that works on issues of violence against women, founded in 1999). The collection also contains full issues of Sri Lankan magazines that feature articles about LGBTQI individuals, pride celebrations, and other relevant topics.

Processing Information

This collection was initially processed by Jennifer Shaw and Tyler Gardner as part of a project financed in part with funds provided by the State of Minnesota from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the Minnesota Historical Society in 2013. The collection was reprocessed, and the finding aid revised, by Sayan Bhattacharya in 2018.

Title
Materials relating to LGBTIQ and Women’s Rights Organizations in Sri Lanka, 1999-2006
Author
Heather Dahlgren, Susan Hoffman, Jennifer Shaw, Tyler Gardner and Sayan Bhattacharya
Date
2013, 2019
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English

Revision Statements

  • 2019: This finding aid was initially created in 2013 and was revised by Sayan Bhattacharya in 2019.

Collecting Area Details

Contact The Jean Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies Collecting Area

Contact: