Kathmandu – Aritha Wickramasinghe, a prominent Sri Lankan human rights lawyer, Equality Director at iProbono, and leading advocate for the rights of gender and sexual minorities and policy reform, has provided online training to GSM political activists in Nepal.

The online training on political engagement was organized in coordination with the National Federation of Sexual and Gender Minorities Nepal. Activists from the GSM community who have been involved in political campaigns seeking mandatory representation at the policy-making level participated in the training conducted by Wickramasinghe.

Wickramasinghe provided participants with guidance on how to advance in politics and also answered questions raised by the participants. Manindra Singh Danuwar, project chief of the Breaking Barriers project, implemented with the support of the European Union and in collaboration with ActionAid, said the online training was useful for the participants.

The online training for Nepal’s GSM community was organized by iProbono at the initiative of former Constituent Assembly member Sunil Babu Pant. Fifty political activists from the GSM community are currently active with the goal of contesting the upcoming elections. Wickramasinghe, who leads equality law work and access-to-justice programs for marginalized communities at iProbono, provided the activists with the online training.

Wickramasinghe has been active for a long time in Sri Lanka in the areas of the rights of gender and sexual minorities and legal reform. He has played an important role in advocating for reforms to colonial-era legal provisions that affect Sri Lanka’s queer community and for ending their criminalization.

He has also been advising the Sri Lankan government on legal reforms and actively advocating for reforming or decriminalizing provisions under Sections 365 and 365A of the Penal Code. These legal provisions have affected Sri Lanka’s queer community.

His advocacy for the rights of the GSM community has also received international recognition. The Financial Times has recognized him as a leading LGBT business leader and a “future leader.”

Wickramasinghe has also analyzed how legal codes that have remained in place since the colonial era in Sri Lanka continue to affect the GSM community.