Sri Lanka’s anti-Muslim movement and Muslim responses: How were they gendered?

Abstract

The rate at which Muslims were procreating as well as Muslim women’s dress were important issues for Sri Lanka’s post-war anti-Muslim movement. Muslim interlocutors defended women’s dress practices as protecting women from sexual violence, and urged that the solution to perceived Muslim population increase was to ensure increase of the Sinhalese population. The government responded by banning NGO programs in reproductive health and family planning. This chapter will explore the above developments while reflecting on how gender orders in Sri Lanka became reorganized in the aftermath of the state’s military victory in 2009. I argue that this reordering is reflected both in the anti-Muslim rhetoric and the rolling back of important women-friendly policies in the country.