Prior to hitting the campaign trail for local government polls to be held later this month, Nimalka Fernando got another taste of the sexism that prevails in Sri Lanka's political culture.

When Fernando, the leader of a group of women candidates, asked for a receipt for the cash deposit she had made to contest the elections, officials were stumped: The receipt book had only provisions to accept deposits from men.

''The receipt book had only 'Received with thanks from 'Mr' there was no 'Ms' or 'Mrs' and the clerk was scrambling for a way out of this crisis,''Fernando recalled with a laugh.

A helpful superior then quickly asked the clerk to replace the 'Mr' with 'Ms/Mrs' and issue a receipt before the ''prickly issue is splashed on television and the media'' ahead of the polls, to be staggered over two dates, on March 20 and 25, Fernando said.

Cases of discrimination against women are common in Sri Lanka, 51 percent of whose 19 million people are women. ''It's nothing new. You find this all over even though we outnumber men in terms of population and contribute much more than them to the economy,'' Fernando added.

Indeed, discrimination continues to exist although this South Asian island nation has had two women leaders. Sri Lanka produced the world's first prime minister in the 1960s, Sirima Bandaranaike.

In the 1990s, it also had the first mother and daughter combination to lead a country  it doesn't matter who helps,'' she said.

Among the issues the Colombo women's group is campaigning for are voting rights for women workers in the Middle East, opposition to proposed changes in labour laws in free trade zones to increase night work and overtime for women without proper facilities, and laws against domestic violence. (IPS)