Novel action by NTC, SLCTB and WFSL on women’s personal protection and public transport gathers mome

Women’s Forum Sri Lanka, in keeping with the ground-breaking pledge made last year on international Women’s Day, to implement the first Action Plan publicly presented on ‘Personal Protection for Women and Girls’ has steered on with one of the most pressing issues under it – ‘Action on the protection of women and girls from harassment in public buses’, by introducing the first-ever direct dialogue with bus conductors, drivers and completing two successful sessions.

By engaging in and facilitating vital meetings with all stakeholders with lightning speed, action on the solutions that were listed are already being instituted. Incidentally, this novel third successive interactive session will be held at the National Transport Commission (NTC) Auditorium today (28 February). 

Women’s Forum Sri Lanka (WFSL) had submitted this action plan to the Transport Ministry, and upon having received approval for same with directions to the Sri Lanka National Commission (NTC), which is identified as the nerve centre of transport operations, had begun discussions with the NTC Director Quality Assurance Sherin Athukorale under the guidance of NTC Chairman M.A.P. Hemechandre. 

This had resulted in the WFSL’s successful introduction of the first-ever direct, open and collective public dialogue of its kind on the subject with the bus conductors and drivers at special sessions during training workshops at the NTC head office in Narahenpita.

The WFSL’s key Group member Dr. Hiranthi Wijemana, who presented the WFSL paper on ‘personal protection on women and girls’ at last year’s WFSL inaugural event, conducted this special session with NTC’s Athukorala and NTC’s Junior Manager Inoka Liyanage, while WFSL Founder Convener Charnika Imbulana was the moderator for both the sessions held. 

Wijemana, former Child Protection Authority Chairman and a former Member of the National Committee on Women, addressing the session said: “Every women and girl should be able to enjoy the same right as men and boys to travel in buses without any form of harassment.”

“Simplest solution and the best most implementable approach is to train and instruct the bus conductor when an incident is reported to offload the perpetrator and immediately inform the National Transport Commission hotline,” she said. 

The NTC, which has 3,200 buses under its direct purview, acknowledged that this is also the stance of the Commission and is officially stipulated as a possible action within the jurisdiction of the bus conductors in the event such harassment is reported. However, this area had not been given sufficient attention by the bus conductors thus far. There were many other related relevant issues and solutions discussed. 

Wijemana called on the bus conductors in particular to take on the important responsibility of providing personal protection of the woman and child in addition to their usual work. The session was conducted with also the aim of getting the views of the bus conductors and drivers hence it drew a lot of attention from them and the well-engaged interactive discussion produced ideas and propositions on dealing with perpetrators. 

The bus conductors raised a hypothetical question that in the event they off-load such a perpetrator, what could be done if they themselves are subject to violent retaliation for action taken against the perpetrator? The NTC in response explained the measures that they could take if such occur. 

NTC Chairman Hemechandre pointed out that it is the responsibility of the bus conductors to protect all passengers and emphasised on the importance of protecting women and girls in buses with special action against harassment. He further stated that the NTC is totally supportive for prevention measures and has empowered the bus conductors to deal with perpetrators and get NTC emergency assistance at any time. “The passenger who faces harassment can dial up the NTC hotline not only to report an incident but also report to us if the bus conductor or driver does not take action. In the case of the offender becoming violent the bus conductor or the driver can dial up the NTC hotline for assistance and also the Police hotline,” he added.

Some of the bus conductors were of the view that the public are unaware that the passenger concerned needs to inform the conductor of such an incident, if they are to help. In response to that, WFSL Convener Charnika Imbulana questioned if a poster and sticker campaign to make the public immediately aware of this would help, to which she received an overwhelming positive endorsement from the audience equally from both the sessions conducted.

Soon after the second meeting, Imbulana took the initiative to facilitate for the poster and sticker campaign with posters for the bus depots and stickers for buses as requested upon a design based on NTC, SLTB and WFSL discussion outcomes. A corporate company has assured of same and the date was set for its launch. The WFSL had held successful discussions also with the Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLCTB) Chairman under whom there are 7,000 buses inter-provincial and 23,000 buses intra-provincial. Imbulana revealed that the Deputy Director General Operations Parekum Goonathilake had said that although getting down the drivers and conductors under the SLCTB for meetings often would be literally and logistically difficult, the SLTB would like to join along with their input included into the same awareness campaign that WFSL has designed with the NTC. “The SLCTB’s DDG gave us the total numbers of posters required as per the bus depots and stickers as per the number of buses that would be required for the campaign suggested by the WFSL,” she added. “The sessions have produced successful results with the SLCTB and NTC equally enthusiastic in working with the support WFSL can provide in this sphere. The specific requirements of the bus conductors on the issues are being heard and their issues too are being dealt with. With the bus conductors’ image as the guardians of the bus travellers set to be given a boost, they would get renewed confidence to play a key role in the protection of women and girls from harassment in buses. There’s more to be done,” she commented. WFSL is a group of professional women of different disciplines banded together to work towards women’s empowerment. Specialists of the various disciplines have submitted reports to WFSL as key group members on women and access to justice, prevention of violence against women – personal protection, women in plantations, women and media, migrant women, women and health, women and youth, women and education, women in rural areas, women and economic empowerment and women and political empowerment, etc. The main function of the WFSL is to facilitate the submitted action plans for effective implementation, one at a time. 

The Action Plan on Personal Protection submitted by Dr. Wijemana was chosen unanimously by the WFSL as the first to be taken up at the WFSL inaugural event last year, giving priority to the safety and protection of the woman and child. 

Deputy Minister and MP Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle, who is the Vice Chairman of the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus, is an advocate for WFSL. She was Guest of Honour at the WFSL inaugural session and encouraged the WFSL in their work and played an important role in guiding the WFSL on the first Action plan and has been showing the way forward since.

WFSL keeping to its slogan ‘where the rhetoric stops and the where action has begun’ moves this programme to top gear: In addition to the sessions introduced during the Colombo workshops, WFSL’s programme ‘Action on the protection of women and girls from harassment in public buses’ is now spread-out island-wide with a session already organised with the NTC scheduled to be held in Kurunegala next weekend.