[Rajes Balasubramanian (with her son Seran) "If you…]

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Rajes Balasubramanian (with her son Seran)

"If you trace the history WHAT is the situation women in Sri Lanka?

Tamil women are oppressed because we are Tamils. We face a national oppression which the Sinhalese women don't face.

In all the communal riots since 1956, our women have been raped, burnt alive, persecuted because we are Tamil.

We also have the oppression of cultural norms within our own society - male domination, the dowry system, the caste system.

We have to struggle in both these spheres, and these struggles have to go together.

What scope do you think there is for common struggles between Tamil women and Sinhalese women?

Sometimes you feel the Sinhala women's groups have more in common with the Sinhala men than with Tamil women.

Until they come out, without any reservations and 'buts' and rationalisations, and support Tamil self-determination, we would rather develop our struggle ourselves.

That's why we have some problems with the Sinhala women's groups. Of course, they campaign for the Free Trade Zone women workers who are almost all Sinhalese]. As a Marxist, I know that those women are oppressed, but I cannot identify with them because they do not accept our position.

Rajes: In Sri Lanka, in the south I could walk on the streets. Of course I shouldn't wear my sari or anything like that - I would have to lose my identity and dress like a Sinhalese woman. But I could walk on the Colombo streets.

I couldn't do that in Jaffna [a Tamil city in the north). As a Tamil woman I could face the Sri Lankan army any time.

For a Tamil woman in Jaffna, her own home is a prison.

The Sinhalese women have a LAST SUMMER there were pogro - a quarter of the island's 14 milli The right-wing ruling party, the a even organised the violence.

The Tamils have suffered discrim only from the right wing. Sri Lanka 'socialism' has been identified withe of the Sinhalese and Buddhist majo The socialist Left used to defen them later bent under the pressure* Tamil women suffer a double a women. The Hindu religion domina fies many oppressive customs.

Mary Corbishley and Martin Th manian and another member of the Their personal opinions are not n Women's League.

Contact: Tamil Women's Leag women's centres with the in the Free Trade Zone.

And in the Tamil areas?

In the Tamil areas it's like fascism. It is an occupied land, where you cannot protest or organise feminist groups.

It is within the national liberation struggle that we have to organise women.

What is the economic position women in Sri Lanka?

Are you asking about Eelam or Sri Lanka? For me, Sri Lanka is the southern part of the country.

Both.

• In Sri Lanka women work in industry and in the Free Trade Zone. The Tamil women work in the plantations.

They are in the worst of bad conditions. They start work at 5 am and they end after 5 pm. It's Like a Rajes: I'm told to behave like a Tamil woman. But I don't want to behave like a Tamil woman! It's like being a cabbage.

We are individuals, we are human beings. We have to fight for equal rights.

But the idea is that once you are married you are the property of a Tamil man, and you mustn't say a word without his permission.

I went against the dowry system when I saw my sister being married.

grandmother and mother.

They said I was abnormal. But Amidst rubble: market after last

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I thought it was wrong. 1 started to ask questions of my