Since 2 fucking years I have been paying 60 Rs taxi fair instead of 6 Rs bus fair. WHY? Because 2 years ago a guy squeezed my vaginal area even when I was wearing a denim. I got depressed, wild, angry also a little bit frightened. So I decided never to go by THAT bus again.(Bus from town to my home) Since 6 fucking months I have been using taxis to go home from Colombo …

The Government has decided to introduce legislation, legalising abortion for underage girls who conceive after rape.
Speaking to Newsfirst, Minister of Child Development and Women’s Affairs, Tissa Karaliadda stated that in addition, new laws will also be formulated to legalise abortion in situations where the woman conceives as a result of incest.
Minister Karaliadda went onto say that the draft legislation in this regard is being compiled in consultation with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry …

When we began consulting in 2009, we had little idea of what Grassrooted would evolve into – we knew that HIV would remain our focus always, but that we had to include a broader Sexual and Reproductive Health approach, including Rights, if  we were to have any impact in Sri Lanka, with its low HIV prevalence and near invisible community.
Our consulting business model was simple: work for those who can afford to pay us, and …

Nota Bene – This is a sad article that once more underscores how primitive notions of morality continue to impact our world. What you read below could be Sri Lanka, except that we don’t really like admitting to the existence of sex work. May the gods in your head bless you.
Gaylord Grasshopper
Confiscating Condoms? The Dumbfounding Ways Police Deal With Prostitution
Each year, scores of new laws are proposed to make prostitution somehow even more illegal than …

Yes, sometimes I wanted to run back home but that was an experience I would never have got unless I decided to go on this trip with the Grassrooted team. I experienced real India. It was hard and very different. It was completely different from usual study  tours  we went, had fun, stayed in good hotels, had workshops or trainings inside conference rooms, had meals from the buffet and went  shopping in the evenings. This …

A giant condom will be ‘wrapped’ around the Dutch Munt Tower in Amsterdam this week. It’s probably one of the more striking activities that will mark World AIDS Day. Meetings, film-viewings, theatre plays, articles, brochures and many other happenings will call upon people to join the fight against AIDS. To effectively fight AIDS though, we need to also fight tuberculosis. ‘Getting to zero’ is this year’s theme for World AIDS Day.
Getting to zero, backed by …

Remarks by Stephen Lewis, Co-Director of AIDS-Free World, delivered at a colloquium hosted by Yale University’s Global Health Leadership Institute and the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, CT, on November 28, 2011.
On the Gutting of the Global Fund
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has been the international financial armada in the battle against the three diseases. The collapse of the next round of Global Fund grants, known as Round …

Earlier this year, in July, I managed to get an interview with Johnson Uncle and Jamis Aiya, Chairman and General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Associations of Bus Jack-sons (SLABJ) who discussed their motivation to sexually harass women on the bus. They also claimed during that interview that the Transport Ministry had underreported their successes, and claimed the overall sexual harassment was actually around 70%, give or take a squeeze here, a grope there, and rub …

 For Immediate Release: Bangkok, Thailand, 27 November 2011: 
 We, the under signed civil society organisations working on HIV, AIDS and human rights express grave concern about the manner in which the KORUS Free Trade agreement was passed in the South Korean Parliament on Tuesday the 22nd of November 2011.
 The South Korean government has reportedly pushed its parliament to ratify the agreement without transparent and open public debate. This act of secrecy and lack of accountability to the public was …