“Winning Back the Night” – 06/10/08
In Sri Lanka women are mobilizing on their bicycles to win back freedom in what are ironically called “Free Trade Zones. (FTZ)
FTZs are special areas of a country where some normal trade barriers such as tariffs are eliminated and bureaucratic requirements are lowered in hopes of attracting business and foreign investments. These zones often include labor intensive manufacturing centers that involve the import of raw materials or components and the export of factory products.
In 2000 there were over 43 million people working in about 3,000 FTZs in over 100 countries which produced clothes, shoes, sneakers, electronics, and toys for multinational corporations. Many of these FTZs are located in developing countries where poor migrants converge on the zones looking for factory work. There are three Free Trade Zones (FTZ) situated in Sri Lanka named Katunayaka, Biyagama and Koggala. Nearly 500,000 factory workers are in these FTZs and over 90% are young women in the average age group of 16-25 coming from rural areas in the country. They bring the highest foreign exchange to the country which was US$ 2.7 Billion in 2005. 
Yet women’s lives in the FTZs are not safe because they face sexual harassment and assault on their way to work and on their return home at night. Though the Sri Lankan constitution guarantees the right to freedom of mobility, many of these workers do not have this freedom. These acts of crime often leave a social residue that brutalizes the individual and perpetrates a lifetime of mental suffering, trauma, shame and repentance for women. Thus gender violence deprives society of women’s full participation and would encourage it to infringe the human rights and democracy.
“Winning Back the Night” was a campaign started by factory workers and women’s empowerment groups in Sri Lanka to emphasize the need for freedom of mobility. They mobilized and moved to create violence free FTZs by advocating for:
• Education of employers, workers and the entire FTZ community about the problem of sexual assault.
• An atmosphere conducive to open communication and healing for sexual assault survivors.
• Increased effectiveness of police patrolling and law enforcement
• Repair of broken street lamps to provide security for women workers in dark hours
• Sound public transport system for workers in collaboration with employers
Activities for the campaign include rallies, pickets, pocket meeting, leafleting and poster displays, street theatre about freedom of mobility without sexual violence. Bicycles were utilized as a key component to mobilize women for the activities and for the rallies and marches they were a way to increase visibility and symbolize safe transport. For Sri Lanka women factory workers, bicycles are immensely important to winning back the night.
Profiled by Shamila Daluwatte