In Sri Lanka’s Economic Zones, LGBTQ+ Workers Fear for Their Employment and Their Lives

On a humid evening in April, Chameera*, 26, sat beside his partner Nimalka*, 30, a bisexual woman, in their cramped boarding room in Katunayake, an economic zone 32 kilometers (roughly 20 miles) north of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital.

They met about three years ago while working as machine operators at United Tobacco Processing (UTP), a factory that produces premium cigars for global brands like J. Cortès, Country, and Amigos. At that time, Chameera presented as a woman. Fearing social stigma and termination from work, they have tried to keep their relationship a secret.

Chameera recently came out as a trans man, legally changing his name six months ago. He’s cut his hair short and is now waiting for his mastectomy.

After his haircut, factory management called Chameera for a meeting. “They [managers] told him to stop coming to work looking like this,” said Nimalka. “Some managers told him that it’s sinful to be trans. When Chameera last met the managers, they even removed his mask to see if he’d grown a beard.”

In Sri Lanka, not only do same-sex couples not receive any legal recognition, but homosexuality is still punishable by the law, with a prison sentence of up to 10 years. The same intolerance is reflected in Sri Lankan society, which views the LGBTQ+ community with disdain in all social realms — particularly, in the workplace.

“Managers and supervisors humiliate and bully [LGBTQ+] people in the factory,” said Ashila Dandeniya, founder of Stand Up Movement Lanka, a labor rights organization based in Katunayake. She is also a former garment factory worker at the same economic zone.

Katunayake, which began its operations in 1978, is one of the 12 Export Processing Zones (EPZs) regulated by the Board of Investment in Sri Lanka, whose focus is to attract foreign investment to the island. In these zones, hundreds of thousands of employees and daily wage workers — 60 percent of whom are women — are employed under harrowing conditions to manufacture goods ultimately exported to the Global North.

A 2013 paper from the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade found that 79 percent of women workers surveyed in EPZs were employed in low to medium-level jobs — such as machine operator, packer, and cutter — with only 5.3 percent in management positions. A majority are below the age of 30, come from rural families, and are not highly educated.

“Young women leave their families and come to towns,” said Dandeniya. “They don’t have a support system and become easy targets for all sorts of harassment, mostly based on their sexual and gender orientation.”

In February, a lesbian woman who worked at the same factory killed herself; Dandeniya said she was ridiculed and refused work after she had cut her hair short.

News of her suicide spread through the economic zone and drew outrage from labor activists. With UTP’s reputation tarnished from the bad publicity, Dandeniya said, “now they don’t hire anyone with short hair. The moment you cut your hair short, they fire you.”

Nilmini*, a supervisor at UTP and mother figure to many of the young workers, initially supported Chameera’s decision to cut his hair. “We cannot judge someone by how they look,” Nilmini told me over the phone.

But after discovering his trans identity and romantic relationship, Nilmini no longer answers Chameera’s calls.

Meanwhile, factory management have made good on their threats to Chameera and denied him work, effectively terminating his employment. “I’m worried that Chameera will do something to his life,” said Nimalka.

A socio-cultural issue

In many ways, UTP factory management’s response to Chameera and others like him mimics Sri Lanka’s larger social attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community. On the island, perceptions about how men and women should look and act are deeply embedded. Social construction in Sri Lanka only accepts binary genders, with non-binary identities, viewed with disgust, Dandeniya said.

While Chameera’s parents still support him, he cannot visit them in their village in Galgamuwa, 159 kilometers (nearly 100 miles) north of Colombo. “People in the village don’t see me as a human anymore,” he said. “They look at me like I’m a menace to them.”

A study mapping LGBTQ+ identities in Sri Lanka — the first of its kind in the country — conducted by Equal Ground, an LGBTQ+ rights organization based in Colombo, explored common beliefs about the LGBTQ+ community by those outside the community, noting how certain respondents who self-identified as non-LGBTQ+ believed that same-sex relationships don’t suit Sri Lanka’s culture.

Some respondents even believed that non-binary identities were a birth defect or mental illness. “I feel that they could be taken to a psychiatrist and explain it to the doctor and give her some treatment and maybe 80 percent will be successful...” said one respondent.

Interestingly, both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ respondents viewed a union that doesn’t procreate life as “ineffective” and believed that same-sex relationships could lead to a population decline.

An enduring colonial legacy

Long before the island came under British colonial rule in 1815, “our ancient history suggests that same-sex relationships were common in the past [and] deemed quite natural,” said Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, Equal Ground’s executive director. “But then the British came. They colonized us and administered their Christian and Victorian values.”

In 1883, the British criminalized any sexual activity between men in Sri Lanka, creating sections 365 and 365A of the Penal Code 1883, which exists to this day. When human rights activists attempted to repeal these sections in 1995, the then-government responded with hostility and disapproval, instead expanding the law to criminalize sex betweem women as well.

In 2017, cabinet ministers rejected another proposal to end discrimination based on sexual orientation on the basis that it could legitimize homosexuality.

“There was a provision referring to the sexual orientation of individuals and we clearly said it was not acceptable,” said then-health minister Rajitha Senrathne.

The minister also added that Sri Lanka’s conservative Buddhist clergy (which represents the country’s dominant religion) also opposed the provision, even though Buddhist teachings do not elaborate on sexual orientation.

“The government is against homosexuality,” he said, “but we will not prosecute anyone for practicing it.” But without legal recognition, the LGBTQ+ community is left unprotected and vulnerable to discrimination, violence, and even predation by law enforcement, who can weaponize the vague mention of “acts of gross indecency” in the penal code to target them.

“Due to the social construct in Sri Lanka, police think that they have the right to arrest LGBTQ+ people for consensual acts of sexual conduct,” said attorney Tarangee Mutucumarana.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reported on authorities in Sri Lanka forcing LGBTQ+ people to undergo anal and vaginal exams as proof of homosexual conduct. “No one should be arrested, let alone subjected to torture and sexual violence, because of their perceived sexual orientation,” said Neela Ghoshal, HRW’s associate LGBT rights director.

“As long as the law persists, it would be used to discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community,” said Mutucumarana.

The long road to decriminalization

Former finance minister Mangala Samaraweera (who no longer holds a parliament seat) was one of the active political figures who supported a change to the law in 2017. In 2015, he even voted in favor of gay and lesbian rights at the United Nations.

In doing so, Wimal Weerawansa, leader of the political party National Freedom Front, accused Samaraweera of violating the country’s penal code. “Being gay and lesbian-friendly has become our foreign policy today,” said Weerawansa. “This will result in negative consequences in the long run for Sri Lanka.”

“Unfortunately, the constant political situation has made LGBTQ+ people [into] scapegoats so politicians can get their votes,” said Flamer, who doubts decriminalization is even possible at this point.

“But if I don’t hope, I wouldn’t be doing what I do today.”

I spoke with Chameera again on May Day, International Workers’ Day. He no longer works at the UTP factory where he made cigars for five years.

“After that meeting with the managers, I was scared to go to work. They wanted me to grow my hair and hide my identity. If I went back, they would have bullied and humiliated me,” he said over the phone. “I can’t stay long without a job. Nimalka can’t look after both of us with her meager salary.”

Living in the shadows is taking its toll. Nimalka, for her part, is constantly worried that their landlords will discover them. “For now, they think we are friends,” she said. But who knows how long they can keep their relationship a secret; Nimalka already suspects that UTP has discovered them.

If they’re evicted, they’ll have nowhere else to go and likely won’t be able to find employment at another factory. And without systematic laws and labor protections to acknowledge and defend their rights as LGBTQ+ persons, they will continue to be at the mercy of any workplace’s biases.

“We are helpless.”


* Names have been changed for their protection.