Access to Justice for women in Sri Lanka: A true WIN-WIN story

by Chandrika Gadiewasam

 

●     Cyber crime a serious emerging threat to young women

●     Sri Lanka's legislation to protect women comparatively strong

●     Women often do not know their rights

●     Sri Lanka as a prime tourism destination could be tarnished by GBV

 

 

It is estimated that one in four of Sri Lankan women are victims of domestic violence. It makes little difference if one lives in Colombo, in the rural outskirts of the country or if one belongs to so-called educated diaspora living in "progressive" countries. Marriage in particular, appears to provide a licence for men to abuse their wives with impunity, leading to cycles of violence and ripple effects which brutalise children and lead to generations who suffer from traumatic memories. It is also estimated that half of all women murdered worldwide are killed by their spouse or intimate partner. So how does the violence that begins with a drunken slap go down the slippery slope to battery, abuse, marital rape, manslaughter and even murder? Will cyber crimes lead to even more suicide in Sri Lanka? What can be done by society to prevent the suffering of its vulnerable women and children, and to prevent prolonged cycles of abuse, trauma and violence which sap at the very foundations of human wellbeing?

 

One organisation at the forefront of the fight to eradicate the scourge of gender-based violence in Sri Lanka is the long standing "Women in Need"(WIN) organisation which has for many years made determined efforts in a number of diverse areas, aiming for the protection of women and children from violence. Although WIN started as a"Drop-in Centre" for women in crisis, in time, the issues that WIN was called upon to handle became more complex and diverse. A number of its long term initiatives now include the provision of legal advice, counselling and safe houses to women who are under the threat of domestic assault, working with the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs and with the Police and judiciary, raising awareness among stakeholders including men and boys, school children,university students, state,police and legal personnel etc.

 

WIN Executive Director Savithri Wijesekera discussed the work and achievements of WIN in the recent past, in addressing gender-based violence in Sri Lanka. According to her, many women are still not aware of their rights, and recourse and also there are deeply entrenched attitudes of stigma attached to women who break the silence about their suffering.

 

New threat of cyber harassment

She pointed out that cyber-crime (including cyber harassment and so-called 'revenge porn') are an emerging new threat of horrific proportions, affecting young women with possibly tragic repercussions even leading to suicide in some cases. The current law in this regard is the cyber crime law which is very broad, and does not address this aspect specifically. The state and law enforcement including CID should take this new danger very seriously and address it with a special unit and special training, as well as drafting more effective legislation in this regards, she recommended. Parents in particular had an important role in this area to educate themselves and get an understanding of the dangers involved, as well as to be close to their children, and also be in a position to advice them for example not to bow to peer pressure, and ensure that children confide in them. Banning phones and internet outright was obviously not a practical solution in a modern world but similarly it was important that parents know what is happening in the lives of their children. She highlighted a recent report of a "Facebook party" which had resulted in the arrests of more than a hundred youth for involvement with drugs, and said that parents must be alert and aware as to what their children are doing. It is therefore important to strengthen the relationships with their children. WIN along with the Grassrooted organisation have carried out some awareness programs with schools, where principals have invited them to, but there has not been much official attention to this problem.

 

SGBV's negative repercussions in society

Savithri stressed that it is important for law enforcement to ensure that crimes against women were taken seriously, going on to mention that the recent release on bail of a provincial councillor who had allegedly raped a 16 year old girl, was sending a very negative message to citizens of the country that some people can get away with such crimes with impunity. Similarly while Sri Lanka is currently considered a number-one tourist destination, its treatment of foreign women (for example street harassment and exploitation) such as the recent rape in Hikkaduwa, will send a very damaging message to potential tourists. Savithri stressed that it was important to take steps to strengthen implementation of the strong laws that were already in existence.

Furthermore, she strongly emphasised women themselves should bring up their sons to respect women, and not to treat them as inferior or sexual objects; this appears to be more widespread in Asia.The message from all sources therefore should be that this kind of actions will not be tolerated.

 

 

Access to Justice

Often in cases of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), whether incidents happen in the domestic environment or on the street, or at the workplace, it is seen that women and girls hesitate to take action and seek legal recourse with a number of economic, social and institutional factors contributing to this reluctance. Through its numerous services, WIN facilitates victims/survivors of sexual and gender based violence to access legal and other remedies provided in law. Some projects are articulated in such a way as to address the challenges and various obstacles faced by women victims in accessing the justice process. For example A current project "Ensuring Formal Justice Sector Responsibility and Accountability to redress Sexual and Gender Based Violence against Women and Girls" seeks to encourage women to seek redress through legal means. Under this project WIN, in consultation with The Asia Foundation is engaged in a research where formal justice sector responses are documented and analysed. Attorney-at-Law Niroshika Wegiriya who co ordinates this project was interviewed in a regard to its scope.

 

Q.What are the objectives of your Access to Justice project?

A: WIN has been providing a number of services including awareness raising, counselling, safe houses, legal aid, and in this particular project a main objective was to actually observe and support the judicial process in cases where women availed themselves of the justice system. This is the first time such a project has been carried out in Sri Lanka, along with studying how courts handle these cases. WIN has found out a number of positive practices of the formal justice sector when dealing with sexual and GBV cases. We are happy to say many judges are sympathetic to and even empathise with women who are in such situations, although the lawyers appearing for the defense may be hostile, as they want to win their case, regardless. It was also found out that judges pay special attention to cases of statutory rape and for example ensure the privacy of the child when hearing such cases. On the other hand we have also seen some very traumatised, injured women who gather the courage to come to court but have to face insensitive attitudes from the defense lawyers and judges.

WIN is also focusing on working with men and boys, through because if men tell other men that GBV is wrong, the message is stronger, and we have carried out school programmes, to educate boys to respect women, as much as they respect their mothers and sisters, and not to objectify women.

 

Q What are the challenges you faced during the implementation of this project?

A: There are many challenges that prevent women from speaking out. They are naturally reluctant due to the sensitivity of the issues, there is social stigma, and unfortunately they have no faith in the police and judiciary. They are ashamed to go to the police or courts, they fear families will be broken apart and they aim to protect the matrimonial unity. There is an attitude that these problems should not be made public and women often appeal for it to be settled out of court somehow. Another important reason is that women are dependant on their abusive spouses. People are not aware of the laws available- for example did you know that a protection order can prevent an abusive husband from entering the matrimonial home even if it is his house? Women do not know how to make use of these safeguards. So the worst challenge is economic dependency, as they have no way of supporting themselves or their children. For us too funding is a challenge and in terms of the cases undertaken by our project, some cases are continuing beyond the term of our project, so we maybe unable to closely monitor them further.

 

Q What support do you need from women, men and other stakeholders to better achieve your objectives?

A: We need more people (women and men) to be aware of rights, and we have organised activities to promote awareness, for example social media campaigns, community awareness programs including street drama events, and training for stakeholders such as police women. We need men and boys to understand why society as a whole suffers when there is domestic violence, and we need law enforcement to take these cases seriously.

 

Q What do you feel about the progress you are making ?

A: We are supporting a large number of women through our various programmes, in spite of the fact that our organisation is not very well funded, many working here are deeply committed to this cause. More women are coming forward to our district crisis centers following the community awareness programs conducted. We have also received a number of requests from different stakeholders including Divisional Secretariats, Sri Lanka Midwives Association, National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority (NAITA) (targeting youth) We have many success stories of women who were saved from what would otherwise be a lifetime of suffering

 

Q: What are you doing to address the issue of alcohol abuse?

A:This is a crucial factor contributing to GBV. There are positive cases where our counselling has resulted in men being rehabilitated from alcoholism, which obviously benefits the women, and the family institution. This is an area where progress can definitely be made

 

Q What can the women themselves do help fight GBV?

A: It's very important to educate oneself of the law. For example even in the case of cyber harassment, for example if there is an offensive photograph in a phone, the Police can act under laws like the obscene publications law, but they tend to refer them to the CID, which is not necessary. Women should come out and break the silence, but its not as easy as we think, due to the cultural and social backdrop. However it is important to realise that if this is not brought out into the open, it may result in a life being sacrificed. Children too can be traumatised very much and permanently emotionally scarred. To prevent this, women have to take a stance, and be courageous. We have success stories, for example where a judge had given a protection order according to the DV Act and prevented an abusive husband from coming near the family at least until the child's exams were over.

 

WINs 2six4 App

WIN also recently launched a smartphone App titled 2six4 which can be downloaded through Google PlayStore, and features one touch access to needed contacts, police stations, emergency services and trusted contacts. WIN's social media presence including its Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/womeninneedsl/) and the 2six4 App have resulted in more women approaching the organisation through these modern methods too. Visit their website https://www.winsl.net/ for more information. The WIN 24-hour Hotline is 011-4718585 ……………………………………………………

(The WIN project on Ensuring Formal Justice Sector Responsibility and Accountability is funded by the Asia Foundation with support from the EU, and the 2six4 App was co-funded by UNDP)

Media Conference on the need to enact the Animal Welfare Bill

January 13th, Ramanna Nikaya Headquarters, Colombo 5

 

A media conference was organised by Justice for Animals, a community project under the Sri Bodhiraja Foundation, to discuss the enactment of the Animal Welfare Bill. The panel consisted of three key speakers; Ven Dr Omalpe Sobhitha Thero - President of the Sri Bodhiraja Foundation, Mr  U. R. de Silva - President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka and Mr Senaka Weeraratna - Attorney-at-Law and former consultant to the Law Commission, on Animal Welfare Legislation. The event was attended by the clergy, animal activist groups, animal lovers and the media, and discussed key problems relating to current legislation on Animal Welfare.

 

Our religion is to secure the rights of the voiceless

"There is no religion here. Our religion should be to secure the rights of the voiceless," said Ven. Sobhitha Thero who highlighted the pathetic situation faced by animals who share the earth equally alongside humans. "We've forgotten that animals have the right to share the world as much as we do. We seem to think that we are the owners of everything around us, including animals and natural resources. We have to acknowledge and respect the rights of all living creatures," said Ven. Sobhitha Thero. He quoted Mahatma Gandhi's saying that the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. He cited many instances of Sri Lanka's pre-colonial era and how rulers at the time protected the rights of animals and promoted peaceful co-existence between humans and animals, and of the importance of influencing and putting pressure on the ruling parties to provide similar treatment for animals.

 

The process of enacting the bill

U. R. de Silva spoke of the role of the Bar Association in relation to initial preparation of the draft Act. Generally, the process involves drafting at the Legal Draftsman's Department followed by amendment of the Bill, based on suggestions from the Select Committee of Parliament and recommendations from the relevant Ministry, and direction by the Attorney General. After deliberations, the final Bill will be debated in the parliament and enacted. "Rather than waiting for something to happen, we must follow up and actively work on it," he said. He also informed that the full support of the Bar Association will be given to the enactment of the Animal Welfare Bill.

 

Current animal welfare situation

The existing law relating to cruelty to animals is as good as non-existent, and certainly not enforced, with the maximum fine for cruelty to animals being only a mere 100 rupees. Mr de Silva informed that a ten-member committee comprising the National Animal Welfare Authority, that is recommended in the Bill to be set up will comprise a lawyer, veterinarians practising both western and eastern medicine, academics and leading activists who are also passionate about animal welfare,  will be appointed to the committee to oversee matters.

 

People who abandon animals on the roads and temples after allowing them to procreate without taking proper responsibility for them, imprison animals in kennels without giving them adequate freedom, and abuse or neglect them, will be subject to punishment under this law. The Bill introduces a duty of care on every person who is in charge of animal(s). The draft Act stipulates a fine of 100,000 LKR as well as a one-year prison sentence.

Crimes against the voiceless

Topics raised by the audience included instances of shops and even individuals selling animals at exorbitant amounts and making money from the practice of puppy mills, individuals and groups carrying out financial fraud in the names of animal welfare preying on others' compassion for animals, elephants and other wildlife being neglected and abused in zoos, tourism and cultural based animals abused such as for horseback riding or elephant riding as well as use of elephants in religious processions. The lack of veterinary clinics to tend to animals in need, lack of accountability by pet owners when abandoning their pets, the use of purebreds as a luxury item, use of social media in showcasing and displaying acts of cruelty towards animals, animals in captivity, transporting and even rearing poultry under intense, cruel conditions for consumption will be covered under Regulations to be Gazzetted by the Minister in charge, under the provisions of this Bill.

This Committee will monitor compliance with the provisions of this Act and take steps as deemed fit to ensure that ,the objectives of the legislation are met and modern standards of treatment of animals become part of the way that animals handled by people in charge, while at the same time ensuring that those who violate the law will face the enhanced sanctions including increase in the quantum of the fine, and the extension of the sentence of imprisonment.

 

A country in shame

"It is a shame that we have to hold events such as this to enact the Animal Welfare Bill in a country that had paid so much more consideration and respect for animals during pre-colonial times. We were known as the 'Aryawansa', or the 'noble race', because of the way we treated animals," said Attorney-At-Law Senaka Weeraratna who was the Legal Consultant on animal welfare legislation to the Law Commission of Sri Lanka and had worked tirelessly in an honorary capacity, from 2000 to 2006 to draft and revise the proposed Bill. "In other countries, people take pride in working for the welfare of the animals. However, here, no one takes the side of the animals in parliament except for a handful. Why? Because animals have no votes, no money and no clout. We treat them as exploitable, without objection from anyone bar a limited number of organisations and animal lovers. The meat industry is disproportionately powerful in this country. They have even silenced the lawmakers and the media, clearly indicated by the number of advertisements showcasing meat in the media," emphasised Mr Weeraratna.

 

Currently, an online petition initiated by activist Anoka Abeyratne at Change.org which requests the Sri Lankan Government to enact the Animal Welfare Bill has garnered more than 113,000 signatures. Citizens are invited to sign this historic petition by visiting https://www.change.org/p/prime-minister-of-sri-lanka-pass-and-enact-the-animal-welfare-bill-of-sri-lanka-to-replace-current-law-from-1907.

(You can find the petition by visiting change.org and searching for Charlie Animal Welfare)

 

The draft Act prepared by the Law Commission is available for perusal here

https://lawcom.gov.lk/web/images/stories/reports/the_animal_welfare_bill_2006.pdf

 

 

an excerpt from my latest book MY VILLAGE HUSBANDS

On a side note serial bigamy though rarely heard of is lucrative in Sri Lanka as reported by one of the inmates, an ex-army chap who proudly told Keju Ayya about his handiwork. Being merely somewhat good looking and coherent,and also with the automatic veneer of heroic respectability that army personnel were automatically imbued with after the defeat of terrorism by the Army in Sri Lanka, this chap had been able to answer a number of matrimonial advertisements in the papers, of somewhat outdated village spinsters, who had not much family support. After a brief "affair" during which he pretended to be very interested in the lady, he would agree with pretended caution to marry her, and substantial dowries would be given to the lady by her family and thus come under his control. Having transferred assets to his name and got as much of the money as possible into his possession, not to mention having royally screwed the woman for a pleasant interlude (remember the note about free pussy - that itself is considered a conquest in Sri Lanka), he would then move out of town saying that he was called out for official duty, and there would only be his phone number to contact him on. He would by now have begun work on his next conquest, while the first wife waited fondly (and often pregnantly) for his return. And this would go on ad nauseum, leaving a little string of fatherless village spawn in his wake. It would have perhaps worked if he had stopped at two or three or even four women, but human nature is such that the accumulation of ill-gotten gain only serves to fuel the craving for more, and around the time of his sixth conquest, he messed with the wrong dame and got landed in Kuruwita with a long sentence and no more free pussy till 2050.   

(Photo is from a website of the Danadhee Jungle Rest in beautiful Kuruwita)

A Curious Tale

 Curious* was discovered by a local garbage dump, weak, hungry and crooked, one soggy July evening in 2005 . Numerous unpleasant incidents with our growing menagerie mean, that we try not to see or hear stray orphans as we walk or drive around the streets of Colombo, but this one hit my eyes, solidly and firmly although it probably measured no more than three inches across at the time, from nose to ratty tail tip. This bug eyed, quizzical looking vision of a blurred orange ball with a string on one end, would not leave me.  

Curious was destined to be my favourite.

Mentally and physically Curious is slightly handicapped, possibly mildly "autistic". Just like with humans, in the animal world too, this happens occasionally but we see hardly any instances of such because cruel laws of the jungle dictate survival of the fittest and shrewdest and even they never get a second chance. Curious it would appear, was supposed to. Add to this the fact that he had lost his mother early in life , and you understand why he is twice blessed , doubly lucky and a symbol of hope in a world gone wrong.

Curious lives his life at a tilt of about 23 degrees, and so probably is the only one among us who actually sees the world as it really is. This is due to some obscure spinal deformity which makes him slant his head quizzically when he's walking about or sitting thinking. To the every day rat or ghecko he must appear an extra sinister and calculating predator, but we find it extremely endearing, probably because we know that he would never think of catching or killing any thing, far less eating it: Curious is the closest feline domestica ever came to being a practising vegetarian, and prefers papadam and cheese buttons to chicken. In fact any crackling sound will inevitably cause him to spring off his perch and come sniffing thoughtfully around.

Curious has been in one or two very narrow escapes.
There was the day, which we will never forget , when he went looking at his reflection in my loo and fell in. Yours truly is a working girl who goes out at 7 am and returns at 6 pm, so that drop involved a lot of dog paddling, raucous screaming and commode water ingestion until he was discovered in the early afternoon by the daily help and another generous philanthropist, who put his hand in and fished him out, shampooed him with warm water and Sunsilk shampoo, and wiped him down amidst yowling protests, with one of my tea cloths, whilst admitting that there were, in retrospect, not many people around he would do this for…Curious survived this episode unscathed but with a respect for water closets.

Curious is not interested in the usual singing and serenading competitions that Tom Cats spend much of their waking life thinking about. He is no threat to Patchy (the local princess) and would not know the difference between one end of a female cat and the other, and probably would not bother finding out. As far as she is concerned, he is the epitome of genuine unselfish love and companionship and sits near her on cold evenings, quietly watching the funny humans cooking and arguing about who finished the good curry powder.

Curious accepts life good naturedly, although he does not understand it.

For some weeks he would experience hunger, and look curiously at his food , not realising that the actual consumption thereof would relieve the pangs gnawing his innards, but with the vague idea that some kind of participation was expected of him.

We had to fend off the rest of kittenkind and favour him a bit until he got the idea….

Curious lacks balance and will regularly fall on his backside and look miffed about it. We thus never throw him out of the front door , but place him carefully on the front carpet if we need to de-cat the living room. He is the only cat I know to have missed a fridge, by which I mean he tried a running jump from a table to a refrigerator two feet away and missed it to end up falling short and going down scrabbling half heartedly at the door, again to land on his rump with a audible burp.

Curious is a cat, an ordinary cat and nothing like an ordinary cat. HE was discovered among garbage and yet he has enriched our lives more than many expensive diversions money can buy. He has taught us not to take things for granted and yet to accept some things with grace, even if you cant understand the reasons for them. He's one of the reasons I cant find employment abroad, apart from my attachment to my children and my book and DVD collection and the fact that I love Wellampitiya.

I cannot think of anyone but myself taking care of Curious, and it would break my heart to have to let go of him.

So who's the dependent one, you wonder?

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* also fondly referred to as MANTAL
There are more abandoned orphans like Curious featured at www.colombopetrescue.blogspot.com and we hope you will stop by and spare a minute for them. Well, more than a minute if possible?

Enduring lessons in love, life and happiness...

On the occasion of the 99th birth anniversary of Mrs Sessy Paulis of Sirimal Uyana Ratmalana

When I met my adorable mother in law Mrs Sessy Paulis, she was about 70 and I was 19 so actually more than a mother-in-law, she seemed like a grandma to me too which was wonderful since I didn't have one of my own close-by. She was a very graceful and elegant figure, usually in light blue sarees with a string of pearls which she wore when visiting. What stood out at the first impression was one of a very loving, compassionate, and genuinely caring lady of class and standing, who also knew to bond with any strata of people. Since I was a very young daughter-in-law I’m very happy to say that I learned a lot of things from her, and I'm very sure that her lessons of kindness and tolerance live on through me as much as they do through her own children and grandchildren. I was comparatively impressionable and vulnerable at that age, so I do believe she adopted me at once as another happy addition to her large family of 8 children, 6 in laws and what would become about three dozen grandchildren. My earliest memories are of me sitting in her front lawn as she had captured me after a bath and her gently trying to  get some order out of my hair, which those days was much like the curly haired character in Brave. She would patiently oil it and scrunch it, which made it remotely manageable, to my surprise.

There were so  many valuable lessons she taught us including;

• Mettha to all, and so much love for her family—Now I look back on the wonderful relationship we had, and though we went through lot of changes and challenges in life, I cannot remember her having spoken one harsh word, or hurt my feelings ever, and how many people, even from loving families, can one say this about? Aunty was a true Buddhist gentlewoman in every meaning of the word. Aunty would love to meet all her relations, who themselves were very loving and genuine people from down south (Dondra people from Pinkanda) and if we ever went travelling down south or to Kandy or to Anuradhapura we had to meet a blur of dear humble people who loved her and spoke of her as a kind of legend. My own family was a western-educated, nuclear family with all manner of grudges against its various relations, but she always advised me that family is precious and her favourite motto ever was “forgive and forget”. Aunty always without fail remembered the good people did, and made sure to forget any wrongs she may have noticed. From her I learned to always seek the good in any human, and to give people chances.
• Karuna and true humility she told me not to call our workers “servants” but to call them helpers. There is a lot of meaning in this. She has always spoken with kindness and respect to anyone, including those working in our homes, be it a gardner, plumber or attendant. This is a trend modern people do follow, but you will agree it was not common in her generation.
• Muditha Aunty was genuinely happy at the good fortune of other people, and would brag on their behalf. This was the same if it was family, relatives, friends or neighbours. You always heard the nice updates! And all of this before the words “positive thinking” became buzz words!
• Genuine upeksha in all she did. Aunty exemplified non attachment, balance and tolerance in all her relationships and dealings. I learned from her not to judge people simply because they were going against social expectations. Not to judge based on class or rank or financial status, but to be tolerant of peoples failings and search for the good in them. And as to material things, she clung to nothing ever, with another motto being “ we will all be letting go of this and going one day” (api mey siyalla ataralla yanawa ne kawadahari). I knew her always as a simple smiling lady happy with a few pastel colored sarees, one pearl necklace, one beige handbag, a pair of spectacles, and a couple of pairs of usually beige slippers. She hung on to no possessions whatsoever. She also stoically and cheerfully bore any pain, hardships and even significant calamities, such as the complete loss of the family fortune with the Kantalai Dam disaster of 1986, which sounded like merely a passing phase from how calmly she described it. 
• A love of babies. Aunty had quite a few of them herself,(eight!) without any hangups at all,and only had happy and fun filled stories about each experience, and then she also had a huge boat load of grandchildren (I think about 27 at the last count) and loved each and every one of them that she could get her hands on (and the diaspora ones too!). None of our new-fangled family planning there, each little human was treated as a blessing and an amazing new wonder to be mollycoddled and pampered until she reluctantly had to let go of them to their parents. Of course it may not be practical in this day and age, but she lived in a time when this was possible and she basked in the sheer delight of each addition to her brood, and then grand-brood and after some years, the great-grand-brood too!  Aunty was a truly happy and lucky matriarch indeed!
• A love of this planet. Aunty was one of the first environmentalists I knew even before that word became fashionable. She loved working in the garden for hours, and this is probably one of the secrets of her living to 97 in a hale and hearty physical state She would potter in plants, grow flowers of all hues, and carry huge kalugal around making various esthetic arrangements. All coconuts we ever ate over the last 3 decades were from trees she had planted and tended. She would stop and look at a green bean in earnest when we were cleaning them to cook, and appreciate the farmers of our country by commenting on how much effort it took to make even a few beans which we just go out and buy. She would not allow us to waste even a few grains of dhal or rice washed away, not because of the cost of it, but in appreciation of the labour that went into growing food, and also the many who went without. She always conserved water and made sure to recycle even old clothes to take the maximum use out of them. She made thrift and food management a virtue and also from around 7 or 8 years old since she heard a sermon of Ven Narada, avoided meat, fish, and eggs and most dairy products, (except for during a childhood illness when she was compelled by family members to eat fish to “get her strength back”). Unlike the egotistical vegans of today she never imposed her diet on anyone else, or lectured or boasted about it, except for a gentle bit of advice if she felt that someone would take it. It's only becoming clear to us, now, with all the modern hype about the health benefits of veganism, that this too must have been one of the secrets of such a long and healthy life. She was one of those dear old ladies who took a tiny bit of sugar onto their palm with tea, instead of stirring in heaps of sugar, and anyway she always preferred hakuru if there was any. She also stoutly defended her right to be allowed to cook with coconut oil and refused to have anything to do with palm oil and all the other synthetic stuff that commercials were trying to force on us in the 90s, because, in her opinion, “we used to eat baskets full of kavum and kokis at weddings those days and all of us ate coconut oil and nothing bad happened to anyone! “ (referring to village weddings) and, what do you know, she was right after all! She woke daily around five a.m and kept herself busy and active into her 90s, always finding at least some bit of light housework that she could do even if it was washing and sorting the tupperwear or drying pepper seeds in the sun, or helping make some of that awesome billin achcharu . So busy did she insists on being, in fact that she fell one day, and cracked a hip around 94, but as graceful as ever, fully healed and walked around fine for years after that too. At 73 one lovely memory was climbing Sigiriya with her in the lead, and my adventurous daughter dangling between us like a swinging baby monkey at the age of two...I like to think that my daughter has inherited from her, the love of adventure, travel and meeting people.
• A love of life itself. There is no denying that there was family strife in her life in her latter years, as always there will be some external factors to break the peace in any home….but that never kept her angry or downcast. I can only remember a quiet happy humming as she pottered in the garden and greeted each new day with the same wonder and delight with which she danced on the beach, climbed mountains, or ran nimbly after toddling grandchildren. And yet, Aunty was never afraid to leave this life either, and prepared serenely to let go of life with the utmost grace too. A few months before she died she had a rather uncomfortable bout of gastritis and was briefly hospitalised (which actually had happened only about two or three times in all the 26 years i knew her), and the doctors ran every known test they could on her and came up with about 100 pages of reports, all absolutely clear, and with a completely clean bill of health. No diabetes, no cholesterol, perfect heart function.... With the gastritis incident we had all started visiting her because we instinctively felt worried that she was in pain and that she may depart this world soon, but even then she made the usual jokes, and was very cheerful. Some months later, shortly before her 98th birthday she died unexpectedly, quietly and peacefully in her sleep. The last words she said to us were a cheerful blessing as we visited and left.

We treasure that blessing always, and in my heart I fervently  hope that I  will meet her again, in another incarnation, that she will guide me in future too. The fragrance of her loving presence will always linger with us, as a brave, beautiful and inspiring person we were truly blessed to have known.

Shot Gun Funeral

image aptly titled "our packages" from chandrapanagoda.lk 

I didn't know till recently how much a coffin costs in Sri Lanka, it hasn't been that high in my "need to know" list. But this year I found out that it can be anything from 20,000 to 400,000 LKR.,and at each end of the spectrum the damn things look the same! They are shiny polished OBLONG WOODEN BOXES with handles! They have some shiny white material inside. The 400,000 one doesn't look 20 times as posh as the other one, it just looks the same but a bit heavier. I was told that monks get the high quality send off. Of course that makes sense, burning a box that costs enough to make a small home for a destitute family, just because they are a Buddhist monk. Just what the Buddha ordered!

As each year starts we look into it and wonder with new hope, if finally this will be the year we waited for, if this year we will find what we were looking for. None of us imagine that this may be the year in which we die.

My own 2017 started with rescuing a cow of all things under Gods sun. and of course it wasn't the usual rescue from the slaughterhouse, no this was me and this is Sri Lanka so this had to involve more drama and fright and bribery, corruption, violence and skullduggery and a predictably feisty hellcat cow that finally ran away into the sunset of Hanwella- that is a completely different story. But someone told me at the start that I would be blessed, that the universe would reward me. I waited with bated breath all year.

Then 2017 was the year when my father fell ill, mysteriously and irreversibly becoming bedridden in a series of events designed to test the limits of our endurance and of our belief. For various reasons I have written about in other places, I have no sentimentality about my father, and merely considered him sympathetically as an unwell elderly person in need of care.

My mother had taken care of him for many years now waiting on him hand and foot and we had watched as he played the merry devil with antibiotics, randomly self medicating according to his warped medical knowledge, and also binging on eye popping amounts of sugar, in spite of the fact that he was a diabetic and had a continuously suppurating foot wound. On the pretext that he needed sugar because he felt as if he had low sugar, which he did not. The difference between minors and criminally negligent adults is that of course you can't force elders to do anything, even if you can see that they are gradually killing themselves in front of you. My brother and I, his only children, were used to this self destructive behaviour after watching him chain smoke for 30 years, and then completely speculate his wealth away for another 20 years, we had given up expecting him to take any advice from us. Our mother had given up arguing around 50 years ago and instead lived in an alternate reality, based on her knowledge of astrology. Father was supposed to die in 2020. So we braced ourselves for a long and interesting relationship with elderly care institutions in Sri Lanka.

The extent of the care needed by this heavy tall bedridden and incontinent patient, was such that after no less than 23 calls to elderly care homes in Sri Lanka only four agreed to undertake his care. Two were unregulated budget homes for poor villagers, in Homagama and Padukka, salubrious areas of the country, but conditions within them were reminiscent of concentration camps with softer bedding and better ventilation. One was a budget home which looked like a hotel and charged a higher amount and one was a decently registered nursing home in Colombo run by doctors, where his expenditure would add up to more than our combined monthly incomes. We went through three of these different experiences in traumatic sequence.

In the first budget priced home in a rural area called Pitipana, we left our father only one night and returned to find that he had been threatened, starved, and traumatised and his catheter had been tied so he could not urinate. He was actually crying for water and did not let go of his plastic water bottle for many days afterwards. He began to speak only in Sinhala, and he would not recount what had been told to him to make him so terrified. We withdrew him from this pretty place and later my husband paid them a visit with about ten of his friends and indulged in a little summary justice, because we didn't have time or evidence to report them to the authorities. Proper revenge was taken Im happy to say, Sri Lankan style, because frankly we were in a state of emergency and really did not have the patience anymore to be classy and genteel about things.

Its difficult to concentrate, when you are holding up a very heavy and large man who has completely lost the use of his arms and legs, and is continuously incontinent. You try keeping your job, keeping your head and doing this. Adult Diaper bills for the month came to about half my salary, medication bandages and catheter changing added to that exceeded the combined income of my brother and myself.

I asked my husband what rural people with lower than middle incomes did. He said they would take turns. But he admitted he had never seen such a case. Occasionally a frail old lady might get paralysed but still she was the size that could be safely hauled to the loo for cleaning. My neighbour an elderly lady in her late 70s said that she had looked after her husband for eight years, by keeping him locked up at home, without clothes. He would crawl around the house soiling the corridors as he went. My father could not even crawl. It took two people to lift his torso high enough for him to be able to eat something.

Then a relatively expensive interlude in Colombo brought us physical relief, although at the expense of our financial and psychological stability. Cheerful, chubby nurses took care of everything, we could visit him and cheer him up, his long lost relations were allowed access, he seemed to be accepting his pitiable fate at last. But we were steadily notching up debts that we could not have dreamed of, and against our principles, sending pleas around to family members and to people we didn't know, to help father as we wanted to keep him in comfort, till we could sell the family home and finance the rest of his medical and palliative care. Life was disintegrating into a nightmare before our disbelieving eyes. True to Sri Lankan human nature one of our cousins threw it crudely in our faces that we had asked for help, although he had not contributed a cent towards helping us.

In the middle of this all, father himself had a small amount of stashed away money, which could pay for about two months of the nursing home, but he was being typically tight fisted about it. He could not walk, or stand or even sit up unless two strong people placed him upright, but he was stubbornly hanging onto his cash, saying that he would release it if we took him to the bank. To take him to the bank would need a stretcher, two strong men and an ambulance and was completely unnecessary as the bank has confirmed that he only had to sign a form and they would release it to us. There was a deadlock here which was difficult to believe. We could not afford to keep him indefinitely in the Colombo nursing home.

The pretty hotel like home in Homagama agreed to take him in for about ⅔ of the monthly fee. For the third time in three months we arranged to take him away. This was not before sending out another plea this time to the professional institute of which he had been a course director in his proud heyday. They did vaguely commit to sending some money but only a small amount actually materialised and this was enough for one month in the new place. Transporting him took an expense for two strong men to lift him and an ambulance to cart him to the new location. You may not have noticed it in the heat of an emergency, but ambulances are bloody expensive.

Two days later he was dead.

And the new elders home owner panicked, and placed an entry in the police station she claimed covered her jurisdiction, which was a place 30 km away called Horana; the police stampeded over clearly intent on finding some fault with her, 1 for not being properly registered 2 for not having a doctor in attendance and 3 for him having died just two days after arriving. There you had a entrepreneur lady living a horror story. She had just opened an elders home where lots of quiet little old ladies could be bullied into behaving themselves and giving her solid cash, and here she had accepted this bedridden old man and he had gone and died on her. She had the look of someone in a bad nightmare who just wanted to wake up. And it was Christmas day.

Our van transport on the day of the post mortem was no less than 300 km, which is the distance from Colombo to Trincomalee, - this is the amount of zigzagging from pillar to post that we had to go through, the vehicle being with us for no less than 36 hours. We went to the police station, waited for two hours for a constable to join us (there were no other people at the station) went on a detour because the constable wanted to have a look at his three wheel which had been given to a garage to repair,(this is how we spent the first few hours when we should have been quietly grieving for our dead father) then went to the Horana hospital where we waited standing for an hour till the JP came in and told everyone that he was doing us a massive favour by officially releasing the dead bodies of their loved ones, (he lectured us that not his job but he was doing social service)and we had to humbly and worshipfully listen to this (without screaming at him to sign the damn papers because our honoured beloved father was starting to disintegrate in the tropical heat in the mortuary van) then we had to wait another twenty minutes till a half witted nurse found the keys to his room, because they had forgotten the keys, then he took our statements (all three of us, mine, my brothers and the elders home owners) and tried to insist that my mother join the fray,("the spouse should claim the body") and became abusive when i said that she was mentally retarded, and hinted that he could issue a warrant and force her to come here. To this I shrugged, because by now i was ok with anything they did, I was just numb. This was just the beginning of the bureaucratic abuse and obstacles hurled at the family of newly bereaved.

More worshipful humility required of us as we stood near the mortuary for 4 hours, (stood because the Government of Sri Lanka wont afford seats for grieving family whose members are being dismembered) and waited experiencing various abattoir noises and nauseating smells, until at long last the doors opened and a misshapen bundle on a stretcher was exposed and the attendants asked us, rudely of course, where the polythene was. Which polythene you may ask? No one had said anything about polythene, not even our funeral house van drivers. So if you see Hollywood films where the deceased is neatly stitched up in a Y shape and handed back in a body bag, that's not how it's done in Sri Lanka due to our poverty or insensitivity or both. According to the embalming boys, my father's body had been sliced downwards on both sides of all four limbs, his skull sawn off and held in place with a long rag, and his innards emptied and flushed with so much water that the cadaver kept dripping continuously until it was cremated. Furthermore the main arteries had been torn out of their positions and lost, so the embalmers had no way of injecting formaldehyde. Gleefully, and so as to get some more money for their alchohlic bribe, the funeral boys showed me the photos. Morbidly curious as we humans sometimes are, I made the mistake of going through his smartphone file on our father.

Through this haze of insanity only one rational voice spoke to us reasonably, humanely and kindly and that was the JMO, Dr Prasan who first questioned the constable on the suitability of mangling the body of a 78 year old heart patient who had not one but at least four conditions which could kill him of natural causes at any instant, and told him in no uncertain terms of what he thought of his time being wasted in this manner. Constable 80100 did everything he could to obstruct and cause distress to us, including pointing out that the elders home was not registered, (it was under probation for one year which is reasonable in the circumstances) and that my mother had not arrived to claim her spouses body (to which the JMO replied that the children were here and that was quite enough) however the police entry meant that the body would have to be subjected to post mortem, it was beyond his power to stop this procedure at this point.

End of Part one

Part two- the horrors of old folks homes in Sri Lanka.

  

Weighty Concerns

Last week I made my regular pilgrimage to the weighing machine in our central pharmacy and was pleasantly surprised by the large digital computer which spewed out a small note reporting that not only had I reduced two kilos in weight– but that I was also of “IDEAL BMI”.

I know its sad to be reduced to worrying about the opinion a digital weighing machine has of you but this is what my life has come to.

There comes a time in life, and mind you, to some people it comes earlier than others, when weight becomes a serious issue we lose dinner over. IN some cases it sneaks unexpectedly on us and a few lucky people wont even know what I’m talking about, but its called the middle aged spread- and for some it happens so much earlier than middle age.

It’s the beginning of the end of eating dinner and then you start having to resort to miserable substitutes such as soup and vegetables and pretending you actually like them. Its when you begin considering spending your evenings cycling when you have already reached exhaustion point from the work anyway; its when you consider putting on those silly sporty pants and sneakers and jogging about in the park or in the beach, and trying to look as if its making you really happy. Sadly if the actual evidence is true, all you are getting is lung fulls of greenhouse gas and enough repetitive stress on your joints to really ensure that your old age will be crusty and rigid…

This to me is bosh: give me dedicated couch potato- ing any day. Its sloppy its slouchy and its slow but its my ideal existence and has always been. But its with a sense of grim sasara kalakereema (that’s disillusionment) that I notice that this is just not to be the case for me anymore. I crave to be able to do some of the things that I did when I was young, or well, younger. Such as cramming my stomach with half a loaf of hot hot so called roast paang and excellent Soya curry and then eating that slowly with a good book, whilst lying like a slim young reptile on the sofa. Its not something I can even contemplate now since my stomach has got so used to being deprived, that a half a loaf of bread would probably send it into convulsions.

Starvation, paradoxically has become a part of my life, and mind you, just when I reached the stage when I can actually afford to eat anything I want and there is not much point even being philosophical about it. Eat vegetables and drink lots of water they say, to give you a full feeling. I’ve tried this and if feeling like you are a waterlogged garbage bag full of cellulose is supposed to make you happy – well I prefer feeling starved. It’s the rebel in me. I don’t want to feel full when it’s being self-deceiving and I’m actually empty as a vacuum. Let that traitorous metabolism monster do the worst it can I ve decided I’m actually going to get used to feeling starved (since I’m lucky enough to actually have some choice in the matter whereas millions don’t) and probably accepting it and living with it. ...

Either that or one fine day pretty soon I’m going to totally let go and accept the tires. .. Since what’s wrong with being fat anyway? To be honest, I have noticed that some of the jolliest, happiest friendliest CUDDLIEST people I know are fat, and loving it! And I’ve also read that paradoxically somewhat overweight people are healthier –they try to keep their weight down by exercise and diet control whereas the people who don’t have to worry a bit about weight usually don’t have boundaries when it comes to indulging themselves…
So at the end of the day maybe after all its that famous “Middle Path “ we need to stick to.
...Anything to keep from having to drink silly spinach soups! Yeauch!

NO CAT LEFT BEHIND Sri Lanka

Glue traps are a gruesome way to die for little animals, and this is Tinkerbelle a stray kitty who was caught in one, her front leg also breaking in the effort to release her, which is a common occurrence in victims of these inhumane devices. Tinkerbelle's rescue was funded by a private animal rescue fund named NO CAT LEFT BEHIND SRI LANKA.  This FB page based fund was initiated in 2016 by Dutch national Anouk Gaastra who was also the founder of Cat Protection Trust later taken over by animal rescuer Indira Sahadevan. The objective is to sterilize street cats and the cats of poor owners who cannot afford it, so as to prevent/reduce overpopulation and suffering among stray cats.

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Locally resident animal rescuer Marilyn Wouters, who runs a shelter for disabled and paralysed cats in Negombo now helps raise and manage resources for this fund too, personally contributing to the fund on a monthly basis. With the kind support of a team of dedicated vets who work at subsidsed rates, the NO CAT LEFT BEHIND page helps spay, neuter, and treat injured and wounded street cats. Marilyn is also the author of "Picking Up the Pieces" a vivid memoir of life in a number of countries, sales of which also support her charities.

"But some people even abuse our fund, they say they cannot afford the operations but they drive up in cars, clearly they are not poor, this is stealing the chance from another poor person/animal," says Marilyn who emphasised that this fund is setup to help lower income animal supporters, overburdened "street feeders" and also helpless ownerless cats. "Some cases are very expensive to treat as they need long term hospitalisation"

​Beautiful Tinkerbelle now

To date 225 felines have been sterilised and 70 have been treated with funds of around 1.5 million LKR collected by Marilyn and her friends. The Funds have gone towards saving very pathetic cases such as neglected cats with chronic maggot infested wounds, dog bites, and broken limbs. "An estimated 90% of the money was from foreigners," adds Marilyn who works tirelessly on social media to raise awareness of the plight of the stray cats of Sri Lanka. "Since my outcry in December some donations came from Sri Lankans and I hope to be able to pay these bills and continue this work," To help support wounded and injured cats please join and support the FB page https://www.facebook.com/nocatleftbehindSL/  and buy a copy of Marilyn's book "Picking Up the Pieces," You can help support this feline emergency fund directly by sending donations to Dr Asanka of Royal Vets Clinic in Maharagama.TP 0779470047

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Safely spayed cats in a row