Thalatha says Parliament not a decent place

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

Parliament is not a decent place for women to be in, former Minister of Justice Thalatha Atukorale says. “It is high time a code of ethics was introduced for the MPs. Parliamentary standards are deteriorating rapidly,” Atukorale said at the launch of a research study on ‘Gender Discriminatory Labour Laws in Sri Lanka and Female Labour Force Participation’ by Advocata Institute, recently.

Atukorale, a representative of the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus, said at a panel discussion that women MPs were sometimes so uncomfortable and when such a matter was taken up with the Speaker it was just confined to advice with no action taken against the culprits.

She said that it was common that women representatives suffered harassment at the hands of their male counterpart. “Minister Sudarshini Fernandopulle is making every effort to safeguard the women MPs’ rights. As a representative of the Women Parliamentarians Caucus we are struggling to protect our rights.

“We have to encourage educated, decent people to enter Parliament as the behaviour of some MPs is going from bad to worse.”