By Nidarshana Sellardui
The Invisible Weight of Alcohol Harm Affecting Women
When I visit rural villages and tea estate communities as part of our work at ADIC, I meet women carrying an invisible weight. Women often carry the visible weight of household labour or economic hardship. But on top of it comes the invisible weight of experiencing alcohol harm: the husband whose income disappears at the liquor bar, the fear of walking home after dark, the violence that erupts at home. These women know what alcohol does to families. They live it. And in discussions and workshops they share their experiences.
And yet, the alcohol industry that profits from that harm has turned their attention towards women – not to help but to target them.
A Market Gap Big Alcohol Intends to Fill
The numbers tell a story that the alcohol industry has clearly read very carefully. According to Sri Lanka’s STEP Survey 2021, male alcohol use stands at 43.3%. Female alcohol use is just 1.2%. 98.2% of women live free from alcohol in Sri Lanka. Even the majority of men do but for women it is clear that alcohol consumption plays no role in their lives. The same survey shows that 91.2% of women are living alcohol-free across their lifetime.
From a public health perspective, that high rate of women living alcohol-free is a success.
It is the result of deep cultural norms, community values, and women’s own lived experience of alcohol harm.
But from the alcohol industry’s perspective, it is an untapped market of millions. That gap is a business opportunity Big Alcohol is actively working to close.
From Social Media to Dance Floors: How the Targeting Works
Spend a few minutes searching “ladies night Colombo” on Facebook or browsing event listings and you will see it immediately: young women photographed in upscale settings, captions about “girls’ night,” “weekend vibes,” and “celebrate your freedom.” Alcohol is pushed on Sri Lankan girls and women as a statement and marker of modernity, liberation, and belonging.
Women’s bodies, in these settings are the marketing tool.”
Nidarshana Sellardui
But when you come from the community, working with women and girls, you know that these are not organic social trends. They are manufactured by the alcohol industry. The introduction of low-alcohol and ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages (RTDs) into the Sri Lankan market signals a calculated campaign by Big Alcohol to create a new category of consumer. These products are deliberately designed to feel more accessible to first-time or young female consumers – a strategy the same multinational alcohol companies also deploy in other countries in South-East Asia. Ladies’ night promotions offering free or discounted alcohol for women are structured specifically to draw women into spaces where alcohol is normalised and consumption is incentivised.
The tactics escalate and are becoming ever more aggressive. During Sri Lankan New Year festival celebrations in April 2026, events organised by celebrities included prominent Lion Beer branding in which women’s appearance and sexualised imagery were used to attract attention and promote alcohol consumption. Women’s bodies, in these settings are the marketing tool.
The “Women’s Rights” Trojan Horse
For us women in Sri Lanka, the most troubling alcohol industry tactic is maybe the one dressed in the language of equality and emancipation.
In July 2025, the Sri Lankan government changed the law that had prevented women from purchasing alcohol directly from liquor bars. On the surface, framed as a matter of equal rights, this sounds progressive. But we at ADIC and the communities we work with across the island asked ourselves a different question: who benefits?
Women in Sri Lanka are not demanding the right to stand at liquor bars. They are demanding the right to live free from the harm alcohol causes in their homes, their streets, and their communities.”
Nidarshana Sellardui
Women in Sri Lanka are not demanding the right to stand at liquor bars. They are demanding the right to live free from the harm alcohol causes in their homes, their streets, and their communities. The 2018 attempt to change the same law was reversed within days – because communities understood what it was. The 2025 removal should be understood in the same light: not as a step forward for women, but as a step forward for an industry that has learned to use the language of women’s rights to expand its reach.
This is a pattern we see globally. Movendi International has so far documented more than 70 cases. The alcohol industry borrows the vocabulary of feminism – while also sexualising and dehumanising women in their marketing. Big Alcohol seeks to attach positive values to their harmful products that are among the primary drivers of women’s disempowerment and oppression in communities across Sri Lanka.
What This Looks Like in Real Lives
Our 2026 Women’s Day Study found that 71% of women feel unsafe using public places because of people under the influence of alcohol.
That is a measure of how alcohol harm has colonised public space in ways that limit women’s safety and restrict women’s freedom of movement.
In households, the picture is equally stark. Alcohol use is routinely used as an excuse for violence against women.Economic hardship follows when household income is redirected to alcohol.
Women in the communities we work with often tell us that they have limited decision-making power, and that men’s alcohol use is at the centre of that powerlessness.
These are the real conditions of women’s lives in Sri Lanka.
A Legal Framework That Exists But Is Not Enough
Sri Lanka has the policy tools to protect women and girls from the alcohol industry. Our country has adopted these comprehensive and evidence-based measures:
- The National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol (NATA) Act, No. 27 of 2006 outlaws alcohol advertising, promotion, and sponsorship, and bans alcohol sales to minors.
- The Excise Ordinance governs alcohol licensing and distribution.
- The National Policy on Alcohol Control provides a public health framework.
- The Offences Committed Under the Influence of Liquor Act addresses alcohol-related violence.
But the alcohol companies are still violating these rules and standards that are meant to protect our people.
For example, surrogate promotion persists. Social media alcohol marketing goes largely unchecked. The change of the law to make women buy alcohol creates new commercial access points. The gap between what the law says and what the alcohol industry does is wide. And Big Alcohol knows how to exploit that gap for profit maximisation.
Women in the communities we work with often tell us that they have limited decision-making power, and that men’s alcohol use is at the centre of that powerlessness.”
Nidarshana Sellardui
What Needs to Change
The alcohol industry is targeting women because it sees a revenue opportunity in a population that has, until now, largely been insulated from its reach. Every “ladies’ night,” every algorithm-curated reel, every RTD alcoholic product designed to taste like a fruit juice is part of a coherent commercial strategy targeting Sri Lankan women. Despite the severe alcohol harm they are already facing from men’s alcohol use.
We need regulators to treat digital and event-based alcohol marketing with the same rigour as traditional advertising. We need the government to resist industry-aligned framings of the presence of alcohol outlets in our communities as a women’s rights issue. And we need civil society, in Sri Lanka and globally, to name these tactics clearly, so communities can recognise them for what they are. Exploitative and predictably harmful.
Women in the tea estates and rural villages I visit are not looking for liberation through a beer bottle. They are looking for real freedom and lasting prosperity. They want communities free from the harm that alcohol already causes. Women are looking for healthy and reliable husbands, happy children in safe homes, and the economic means for their children to thrive in school and life.
About Our Guest Expert
Nidarshana Sellardui is Programme Officer at ADIC Sri Lanka, a member organisation of Movendi International.
The Alcohol and Drug Information Centre (ADIC) is a well-recognised resource center, promoting demand the prevention of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs (ATOD) and advocating effective policy formulation for ATOD policy nationally, regionally and internationally over the last 30 years. ADIC provides services to government, non-government, civil society organisations and the public in general, in terms of technicality, educational/promotional material on ATOD prevention, resource persons and information.
You can follow Nidarshana’s work on Facebook.
