The Women's Support Group (WSG) is a Sri Lankan organisation dedicated to helping lesbian, bisexual and transgender women. It was set up in 1999 by amongst others Rosanna Flamer-Caldera. It has won the Felipa de Souza Award twice.
The Women's Support Group (WSG) was set up in 1999 as an offshoot from Companions on a Journey. The founders had joined CoJ and set up a support group for lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, which then took on its own identity over time. [1] The group organised a national convention for lesbians in 1999 which encountered hostility and the group also experienced discrimination from the rest of the women's movement; at the first International Women’s Day meeting at Viharamahadevi Park, some women were upset that the WSG was there and Sunila Abeysekera had to intercede on their behalf. [2]
In 2003, around 20 women were involved. [1] The activities of the WSG in the early 2000s included workshops in rural areas about sexuality, women’s cricket tournaments, media campaigns and "The Clothesline Project" which drew attention to the issue of violence against women. [1] As of 2007, the WSG ran a library, a safe house in Colombo and various support groups. [3]
The Women’s Support Group won the Felipa de Souza Award in 2001, alongside Companions on a Journey. It won the award again in 2014, shared jointly with Gay Japan News, KRYSS (Malaysia), O (Pakistan) and the Rainbow Rights Project (Philippines). [4]
Luiz Roberto de Barros Mott or Luiz Mott in São Paulo, is an anthropologist and a gay rights activist in Brazil.
Sunila Abeysekera was a Sri Lankan human rights campaigner. She worked on women's rights in Sri Lanka and in the South Asia region for decades as an activist and scholar. Quitting a career as a singer, Abeysekera briefly joined the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and then founded the Women and Media Collective in 1984. As head of the INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre, she monitored human rights violations by all parties in the civil war. She received the United Nations Human Rights Award in 1999 and the Didi Nirmala Deshpande South Asian Peace and Justice Award in 2013.
OutRight International (OutRight) is an LGBTIQ human rights non-governmental organization that addresses human rights violations and abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. OutRight International documents human rights discrimination and abuses based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics in partnership with activists, advocates, media, NGOs and allies on a local, regional, national and international level. OutRight International holds consultative status with ECOSOC.
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Rosanna Flamer-Caldera is a Sri Lankan LGBTIQ rights activist. She is the founder and executive director of EQUAL GROUND, the oldest LGBTIQ advocacy organisation pursuing LGBTIQ rights as part of the larger Human Rights framework in Sri Lanka. She was also the co-founder of the Women’s Support Group in 1999. Rosanna served as the first Sri Lankan Female Asia Representative (2001-2003) and then Co-Secretary General of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association (ILGA) (2003-2008). She is the co-founder and former Chair of the Commonwealth Equality Network (2015-2022), a broad network of LGBTIQ organisations within the Commonwealth. In September 2021, she spearheaded the first of its kind legal case in the Sri Lanka Court of Appeals, against homophobic, discriminatory and inflammatory speeches made by police trainers in Sri Lanka. The police issued an island wide circular to all police stations in the country that stated that LGBTIQ persons could not be arrested or harassed for being who they are. Through her guidance, in 2015 EQUAL GROUND commenced Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs within the corporate sector and to date has sensitised over 45000 staff members of over 50 companies in Sri Lanka. In 2017 she received the Zonta award for Social Impact and in November 2022, she received the APCOM Community Hero award for her work for the LGBTIQ community in Sri Lanka.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Sri Lanka face significant challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents.
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Prudence Nobantu Mabele was a South African activist who advocated for the rights of women and children living with HIV/AIDS, and against gender-based violence. She was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1990 and went public with her status in 1992. She set up the Positive Women's Network in 1996. She worked with UNAIDS and also qualified as a sangoma. She was the recipient of many awards, including the Felipa de Souza award in 1999. In 2004, she carried the Olympic flame. She died in 2017 and in her memory the International AIDS Society set up an annual prize for gender activists.
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Sherman de Rose is a Sri Lankan LGBT activist. He grew up in Kotahena. As a young person, he wanted to join the Catholic church and studied in Ireland, but he left the church after realizing he was gay. Then, he set up Companions on a Journey, Sri Lanka's first gay rights group, in 1994.
Companions on a Journey (CoJ) is a Sri Lankan LGBT support group founded in 1995. It campaigns to change the laws which criminalise homosexuality and to educate people about sexuality. The Women's Support Group grew out of CoJ, the two organisations sharing the Felipa de Souza Award in 2001. By 2014, CoJ had over 1,400 members and branches across the country.
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