‘I Want to Have My Future, I Have a Dialogue’: Social Work in Sri Lanka between Neo-capitalism and Human Rights

Abstract

Sri Lanka is one of many developing countries where poverty, neo-liberal economic exploitation, economic migration and traditional long-term injustice towards ethnic minorities, children, people with disabilities and women, have created difficult conditions for social work to truly become a human rights profession. This article links poverty issues with some social work issues such as the child's perspective and disability issues, both being important parts of universal human rights. Despite a long social work tradition—early social work training was established in 1952—social work is still a developing profession. The article gives a descriptive overview of the development of social work education since 1952 and provides an example of a successful international collaboration between the University of Colombo and the University of Ljubljana in order to develop social work education at the university level and to establish it as an academic discipline. It gives a case study analysis of the absence of the child's perspective in children's institutions and presents an example of good practice in working with children with disabilities. Both analyses show a need for more professional social workers in the country.