“An oldern Sinhala phrase about“vilaasmak nathim anusayek” refers to the isolation of a person without any communication. However it is apparent today that an entire community has evolved without a secure way of receiving their correspondence: more than 200,000 families living in Sri Lanka have never had an address to call their own.”
“Most of the plantation youth, working in various parts of the country, are not allowed to exercise their voting rights at the upcoming Presidential Election, as their employers show reluctance to grant them leave.
Savumia Youth Foundation Chairman, S. P. Anthony Muthu told Ceylon Today that the same problem erupted during past Uva Provincial Council Elections, as many youths working in Colombo and in various other places, were not granted leave thus, they were unable to vote.
He said, more than 200,000 persons from the plantation sector are working in shops and hotels in Colombo, Dambulla, Matara, and in the North and East. They should be given a chance to cast their votes as it is a national election.
“Employers are reluctant to grant leave to these youths as they are unsure of them returning to work. They are suspicious that the youths might extend their leave up to Thai Pongal following the election,” he said.
This is the second in a series of infographics that have been designed using the latest findings from the ‘Democracy in Post War Sri Lanka’ survey conducted by Social Indicator, the survey research unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives.
In light of the Koslanda landslide tragedy, the findings from the survey with regard to the Up Country Tamil community is of significance – here is a community badly affected by the state of the economy, whose key issues are poverty and unemployment and feel like they have very little say about the affairs of the country. These findings are not new – looking at survey data from four years ago it is evident that things have only got worse or stayed the same.
When comparing the findings from the four main communities, it appears that the Up Country Tamil community is the most affected by the current state of the Sri Lankan economy, making serious cut backs in the household expenditure. Almost 60% of households in the Up Country Tamil community say that they have cut back on the amount or quality of food they purchase while 58.2% of households have gone without medicine or medical treatment.
Overall, the findings from the Democracy survey show that priorities when it comes to development, impact of the cost of living on the household, freedom of expression and movement, satisfaction with reconciliation efforts, sense of empowerment as citizens of Sri Lanka vary by different ethnic communities and even by Provinces.
Read the latest top line report in full here.
