Fun Fast Facts:
- Same-sex activity illegal under a broad provision against “gross indecency”. Has never been applied.
- Punishable by 2-12 years imprisonment.
- 1995 amendment to include lesbians.
- Government has refused to sign U.N. documents protecting homosexual rights.
- In 2001 a gay rights activist was ordered to pay legal fees to a newspaper for writing a letter asking them to remove anti-gay material.
LGBT-friendly organisation: Equal Ground
- Nonprofit organisation seeking human and political rights for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning (LGBTIQ) community of Sri Lanka.
- EQUAL GROUND is the only organisation in Sri Lanka to hold annual PRIDE celebrations.
- Runs a counseling hotline for LGBTIQ persons (in 3 languages English, Sinhala and Tamil).
- Maintains Safe Space is used for extracurricular activities such as dance classes, self defense classes, movie nights, cross dressers evenings, and theme nights for LGBTIQ persons in general and so on.
W3JOY interviewed: Ginni Saraswati Hettihewa of Bent TV
In Sri Lanka, it’s quite a taboo subject to be gay.
Homosexuality imprisonment is 10 years still, and it’s illegal…if I were to be living in Sri Lanka, there is no way I could be as liberal and I think I would still be quite closeted about who I am.
In Sri Lanka, because of the socioeconomic status, the only way you can move up is to marry.
Given that you have to marry up to progress in the social hierarchy, men are still considered the breadwinners….any kind of sexual identity that crosses te masculine and feminine traditional values (according to Sri Lanka) would not be OK.
W3JOY interviewed: Trevor Grant of Refugee Action Collective
In Sri Lanka this week, CHOGM starts. Before it, the Sri Lankan CID have been issuing verbal warnings to human rights activists not to speak about LGBTI rights, not to speak about LGBTI criminalisation in the community and not to hold any workshops on gay rights.
The issue of gay rights will come up, I think there are a lot of gay rights activists in Sri Lanka who will bring this up.
My advice to everyone is to get out there and agitate, keep agitating, keep harassing politicians and drag them kicking and screaming into the real world.
Published on: Aug 21, 2012 @ 9:32
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:23 — 29.7MB)