Women's situation and human rights under militarisation of society: the case of Sri Lanka
The University of Bergen, through its involvment in the Scholars at Risk Network, present a lecture by SAR Scholar and human rights defender Sunila Abeysekera. The lecture is part of Scholars at Risk Norway's Speaker Series.
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Currently a visiting scholar the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Sunila Abeysekera is a Sri Lankan human rights defender and research scholar who has focused her work on women's rights, minority rights, conflict transformation and peace building in the Asian region.
Ms. Abeysekera is a member of several national and international civil society organizations and United Nations bodies, including Co-Chair of the UNDP Global Civil Society Advisory Committee, board member of The Asia-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), and founding member of South Asian Network of Gender Trainers and Activists (SANGAT). She was one of five recipients of the United Nations Human Rights Prize in 1998 for her work on human rights in the Asia-Pacific region, and she received the Human Rights Watch Human Rights Defender of the Year award in 2008.
Ms. Abeysekera has been targeted by state officials and anonymous individuals believed to be connected with the state as a result of her work defending the human rights of Sri Lankans, demanding state accountability and calling for investigations into human rights abuses committed by state actors. In 2009, her name appeared at the top of a watch list of key civil society activists allegedly being monitored by the state intelligence services.
The University of Bergen has been a member of the university network Scholars at Risk since 2008, promoting the academic freedom and human rights of scholars. The core activity of the network is to help threatened academics through giving them temporary academic positions at the member institutions.
