Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Monday that his administration will create safer working conditions for women as women’s participation in the labour market had remained low in recent years. In an economic policy statement delivered at the parliament, Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka had a low percentage of women in the labour market compared to other countries in the region. The present women labour force participation rate is less than half of that of males, lingering around 30 percent to 35 percent since the 1990s. “This participation is not enough to sustain the high growth momentum of the economy,” Wickremesinghe said. He added that his administration would take steps to improve the public transport systems enabling women to travel comfortably to their workplaces. “We are introducing the Light Rail Transit (LRT) with this purpose. This will greatly ease the current passenger congestion and provide a convenient and a…

Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission says authorities should declare a gender violence alert for the central state of Puebla. The governmental commission said Monday that 83 women were killed between January and September in Puebla, where women report above-average rates of domestic violence. A national agency formed in 2007 can declare violence alerts and follow up with education, prosecution, and prevention programs. The state government has called for tougher standards for ride-hailing apps after two women were killed in incidents involving such apps in a month. A female university student was robbed and shot to death Sept. 30 by men riding in an Uber-registered vehicle with its driver. Earlier in September, a driver for the Spain-based app Cabify allegedly killed a young female passenger.

The first women’s health centre in Syria’s Idlib province, designed to accommodate up to 3,500 patients, has been opened near the Turkish border by an Istanbul-based NGO. Mehmet CihatAygun, a board member of the Alliance of International Doctors (AID), told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday that the new centre would include units specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology with a view to providing women with medical treatment both before and after they give birth. AID was established in Istanbul in 2011 by a group of volunteer doctors, pharmacists, dentists, and nurses. It is devoted to providing assistance to people in regions affected by disasters and poverty. Set up inside the Atme Camp, directly across the border from Turkey’s southern Reyhanli district, the facility hopes to meet the needs of some 3,500 women now living in and around the camp. “There were no health centres for women in the camp cities [in Idlib],”…

Bernadette Jordan, the Member of Parliament for the South Shore-Saint Margarets, witnessed history as Julie Payette assumed the role of Governor General of Canada. “She was amazing — speaking in three languages without notes,” Jordan says. “And how she brought her family into the speech was incredible.” Payette’s assumption of the role is a small indicator of progress for women in the political sphere in Canada, a sphere where Jordan would like to see more women involved. She’s recently been named to the Standing Committee on Status of Women of the House of Commons. This committee was established in 2004 with a mandate of studying “policies, programs, expenditures, and legislation of departments and agencies, including Status of Women Canada, that conduct work related to the status of women.” There are 11 members, from all three parties, who form this committee. “I’m proud, as the only woman elected to parliament in…

The Canadian government has earmarked $3.5 billion to advance the health of women and children in Nigeria, Canadian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Christopher Thorney has said. Mr Thorney made this known during the Multi-Country Dissemination of the Rapid Access Expansion (RAcE) Project on Integrated Community Case Management of Childhood Illnesses (iCCM) in Abuja on Tuesday. He said that Canada has a long-standing history of working to advance the health of women and children in Nigeria, including polio eradication efforts and other health initiatives. He noted that Canada’s latest initiative will span a 2015-2020 template and targets related programs during the five years. Mr Thorney, who commended the remarkable progress made so far in reducing child mortality, said that significant work remains to be done. “Troubling statistics are there, in 2016, about 5.6 million children under the age of five died worldwide; to make that more understandable, that is about 15,000…