One of Australia’s leading gender equality advocates, Ms Elizabeth Broderick, Special Advisor to the Executive Director of UN Women on Private Sector Engagement and former Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner, addressed an audience of over 100 Australian university graduatesat an Australia Sri Lanka Alumni (ASLA) networking event on 15 August at Galle Face Hotel in Colombo.
Ms Broderick argued that a more gender diverse workforce leads to better performing companies, more income for families and greater national economic growth.
The evidence suggests that by closing the gender gap in employment in South Asia, GDP in the region would increase by up to 48 per cent by 2025.
Ms Broderick talked about the initiative she started in Australia known as Male Champions of Change - a strategy to engage powerful men to advocate for gender equality in their workplaces.
“What I have come to understand it that if we are to change the system, if we are to deliver equality for women, we actually need to focus on men. We need men taking the message of gender equality to other men.
It’s not about men speaking for women or saving women - it’s about men stepping up beside women, so that promoting gender diversity and women’s leadership becomes everyone’s business” said Ms Broderick.
Ms Broderick now has 160 of the most influential male leaders in Australia taking practical action - such as agreeing to speak only on panels that are gender diverse - to create change for women.
Chief Guest, the State Minister of Finance Eran Wickramaratne, delivered a thought provoking address about the challenges facing women in Sri Lanka, touching on difficulties in accessing safe public transport and the social and cultural barriers to equal participation for women in the workforce.
The purpose of the ASLA network is to bring together the thousands of Sri Lankans who have chosen to study in Australia - there are 7600 studying there right now.
“We established ASLAin this the 70th year of the bilateral relationship because education has been such a core focus of the relationship since 1947,” Acting Australian High Commissioner Tim Huggins remarked.
“The new ASLA network will expand the scope of our bilateral education relationship. This new network will encourage people to study in Australia and celebrate those who achieve great things in Australia and Sri Lanka.
This will also provide networking opportunities to the thousands of alumni who are achieving wonderful things in Sri Lanka after returning from their studies in Australia” said Mr Huggins.