A bill that purported to protect women's rights
by E. Weerapperuma
{This article appeared in Sri Lanka’s Daily News on 22nd September 2005. An essay on the context is at the bottom of this page, which is also linked here}
“Dr. Eshan Dias, Founder - President of Cultura Vitae, the pro-life Movement in Sri Lanka compared some of the groups that propagate Women's Rights as stalking horses, such as Beijing Platform for Action, CEDAW and keep on deceiving the general public about the unseen threat interwoven with the Bill on Women's Rights. He said that unless we become aware of these stalking horses we will be caught in the fowlers snare.
Addressing a seminar at the SEDEC Borella, on Monday, September 12,on the Bill on 'Women's Rights' to be tabled in Parliament, Dr. Dias while conceding that there was much unjust discrimination and genuine violence against women, and such discrimination and violence should be eliminated, said it was questionable whether this would be possible while riding on CEDAW as the Bill on 'Womens Rights' was not that innocent as it appeared to be being a local version of the United Nations Treaty on Women's Rights.
He said the CEDAW stood for the Convention on the 'Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women'.
The proposed Bill has as its objective the implementation and reinforcement of the rights recognised by CEDAW and in essence, it tries to incorporate CEDAW into Sri Lankan law" .
He pointed out that our initial reaction would be to say that this proposal sounds like a good thing. While conceding that it was good to eliminate all discrimination against women, perusing through the content of the Bill carefully, we would find that we have been completely deceived by it.
Although the CEDAW appeared good at first glance, it was fundamentally flawed. "If Sri Lanka incorporates CEDAW into national law through the Bill our nation, our culture, our society, our spirit will slowly but surely die. I say this because at the heart of CEDAW is enmity towards motherhood. It is incidental that destroying maternity requires abortion and hence the CEDAW is better described as the Convention on the Elimination of Motherhood.", Dr. Dias said.
The UN has an international CEDAW Committee that monitors the implementation of CEDAW in countries around the world, and instructs the governments of sovereign nations on how to implement CEDAW by eliminating discrimination. What is kept secret from the public was that this CEDAW Committee holds that preventing a woman from aborting her child constitutes, discrimination, he added. He also disclosed that, that right applied to girls ten years of age, who have the associated right to confidentiality which means that her parents would not be informed that she undergone an abortion.
Abortion certainly does torture and kill an innocent baby and the same time abortion also harms the mother physically, psychologically and spiritually regardless of whether the procedure is illegal or legal.
Abortions continue to kill and maim mothers in countries where abortion has been legalised and touted to the safe. That legalised abortion is associated with, inter alia, cancer of the breasts, cervix and ovaries, uterine perforation and infertility, is well established, he explained.
Dr. Dias brought to the notice of the participants at the seminar that on March 7, this year Sri Lanka had indicated to the Commission on the Status of Women at the UN that Sri Lanka was committed to pursuing the policies of CEDAW. Yet, on March 22, 2005, South Dakota adopted the strictest abortion restrictions in the US and also passed a bill whereby abortion would become immediately illegal in that state in the event that the US Supreme Court overturns (Roe vs Wade).
They have learnt their lessons on disordered feminism. Are we going to learn the hard way as well, he queried. Dr. Mark Fernando,Director for University Outreach and Academic Initiatives, England in his brief observation said that he was of the view that the sovereign nations should not be dictated by outside forces and the nations were free to accept or reject what was not suitable to the respective country. "It is my personal view that Sri Lanka need not accept the recommendations of the CEDAW nor it should incorporate its content to make it law of the land".
Caritas Sri Lanka - SEDEC Director Rev. Fr. Damian Fernando was also present.”