During the 16 days of Activism against Gender Based Violence campaign (from the 25th of November to the 10th of December) the 29th of November marks the International Women Human Rights Defenders Day to commemorate all women human rights defenders across the world who has worked tirelessly to promote and protect human rights of women. It is they who investigate, gather information and report the human rights violations that take place to support victims of human rights violations while at the same time taking steps to implement a state of accountability and put an ending the culture of impunity.

The international women human rights defenders campaign which was launched in 2004 reiterates the need to protect the lives of human rights defenders who are subjected to violence and vulnerable to abuse as they work towards protecting the lives of others. As we recognise all women human rights defenders we humbly remember one human rights activist in particular, Sunila Abeysekara for her dedication in the battle to end human rights violations in Sri Lanka.

Here is a tribute to feminist and women human rights defenders by AWID

Watch this video on Sunila Abeysekara produced by the Human Rights Watch

Read WMC’s edition of Eya and Options featuring the life and work of Sunila. Eya is a Sinhala language magazine publication and Options is the English language magazine by Women and Media Collective.

• Exploring feminism with sunila
• Politics of the late Comrade Sunila Abeysekara that I knew
• “We were Feminists first” Sunila
• Sunila was a true artist a cultural being

• සුනිලා සමග ස්ත‍්‍රීවාදය සොයා යෑම

• සුනිලා අබේසේකර සහෝදරියගේ මා දැන සිටි දේශපාලනය

• සුනිලා සැබෑ කලාකාරිනියක් – සංස්කෘතික මනුෂ්‍යයෙක්