The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake
Bimal Rathnayake objected to media descriptions of a fatal road accident that emphasized the driver was a woman, arguing such framing is inappropriate and undermines efforts to encourage women’s participation in industry. He requested that reports refer simply to the “driver” rather than “woman driver.” He also informed the House that the Opposition’s requested Adjournment Debate would be held on Friday from 3.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, I ask for 30 seconds. Media reporting on road accidents does public service. But one report said: “At Doluwa Temple junction accident that killed three women, the ‘woman driver’ pressed the accelerator instead of the brake.” Such framing should not be because the driver is a woman. When we are working to bring women into the industry, I request media to just say “driver,” not “woman driver,” to avoid insult.
¶ 02 The Adjournment Debate requested by the Opposition will be on Friday from 3.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Wednesday, 8 October 2025 ·No. 22594 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/18807
Cite as: The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 8 October 2025. No. 22594. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/18807