WERC organized the annual conference in Sinhala medium on November, 30th - December, 01st 2012 at the Auditorium. The main objective was to encourage and facilitate academic/practical initiatives on gender issues amongst Sinhala speaking communities.

The theme of the conference was “Gender, Power and Resistance” which has earned growing attention amongst women’s studies, scholars and practitioners in the country. The scholars and academics were invited to present papers on the above theme putting much more attention on the increasing number of cases regarding gender based violence, relating to domestic violence, incest, rape and sexual harassment.

Seventeen research papers which explored on diverse areas such as gender and family supportive labour, women’s role as breadwinner, widowhood, religious law and under aged marriage, teenage pregnancies, women’s liberation through religion, reproduction of gender roles in the cultural productions, gendered nature of costumes in pre and postcolonial Sri Lanka, women’s representation in politics, and micro finance development projects which recreate gender roles, were presented by the academics who are attached to the Universities of Colombo, Peradeniya and Kelaniya.

Sessions were chaired by Dr. Subhangi Herath, Ms. Rose Wijeyesekera, Dr. Nishan de Mel, Dr. Chandani Liyanage, Dr. Janaki Jayawardena and Ms. Dinali Fernando.