Conditions in asylums are often inhumane. Human rights and social welfare nongovernmental organizations are active. Partisan violence on campuses periodically leads to university closings. Religious freedom is respected. However, private disputes occasionally turn into confrontations along religious and ethnic lines, with attacks against Tamils, Muslims, and Christians.
Trade unions are independent, and collective bargaining is practiced.
State workers cannot strike. Kumaratunga has used the 1989 Essential Services Act, which allows the president to declare a strike in any industry illegal, to end several strikes. Employers on tea plantations routinely violate the rights of workers, most of whom are Tamil descendants of colonial-era migrant workers who have difficulty obtaining citizenship and identity documentation.