Agriculture, Livestock and Lands Minister K.D. Lalkantha invoked Soviet revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin’s views on women’s emancipation while addressing the opening of a new state-run childcare facility in Battaramulla last week.
Speaking at the inauguration of the “Little Roots” daycare centre and preschool at the Govijana Mandiraya premises, Lalkantha said women could not achieve true liberation while remaining burdened by household responsibilities.
Quoting Lenin, the Minister said: “Until the three factories inside a household — cooking, cleaning and childcare — are moved out of the home, there is no point in talking about women’s liberation.”
Lalkantha said Lenin had advocated the socialisation of domestic labour through the establishment of nurseries, kindergartens, community kitchens and public laundries. “The intention of the Government is to ensure women’s liberation by taking women out of these three factories,” he said, adding that modern societies were gradually moving away from traditional kitchen-centred lifestyles.
“Urban residents increasingly order food from hotels and restaurants. In developed societies, women have more time for themselves rather than spending their lives cooking for the family. Cooking can be done for enjoyment, but it should not be treated as a duty imposed on women,” the Minister said.
Lalkantha also took issue with the terminology used for such facilities. He said he opposed both “daycare centre” and “childcare centre,” and proposed the term “child protection centres” — institutions where children would be raised by trained professionals even when their mothers were at home.
The Little Roots facility was constructed using a one-million Chinese Yuan donation channelled through Parliament by the All-China Women’s Federation. The opening was first reported earlier this month as a joint project of Parliament, the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs and the Agriculture Ministry. Initially serving employees of Parliament and the Agriculture Ministry, the centre is expected to expand to other institutions.
The opening ceremony was attended by Women and Child Affairs Minister Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Deputy Ministers Namal Sudarshana, Namal Karunaratne, Susil Ranasinghe and Kaushalya Ariyarathna, and officials from Parliament, the relevant ministries and the Chinese Embassy.
Source: The Island.
