Only Domestic Workers Aged 30 And Above To Go To Middle East
By Gazala Anver
Dilan Perera, Minister for Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare said that the age limit for domestic workers going to the Middle East will be raised to thirty within the next three years.
“Currently we have already raised the minimum age from 18 to 21 years. We will raise it again within the next three years to 30,” he said.
When asked if this move was due to horrific incidents of domestic workers being abused by their employers, he said that it had nothing to do with that issue. “It’s just a matter of principle,” he said. “We are currently having discussions with all stakeholders in the industry,” he said.
In the last four months domestic workers going to the Middle East have brought in 1,688 million USD worth of remittances to Sri Lanka, the Foreign Employment Bureau stated. In addition, remittances have seen an increase of 26%. The last six months have also seen 126,787 domestics workers going to the Middle East.
Despite bringing in considerable remittances to Sri Lanka, in the past year alone several cases of abuse have been brought to attention. The dead body of domestic worker Pavani Devi Sinnaiyah, aged 36, was brought back home recently from her work place in Al-Ghorayath, Jouf province, Saudi Arabia. Her autopsy reports confirm death due to homicide.
After 14 years of unpaid labour and alleged imprisonment Indrani Mallika Hettiarachchi, 45, was rescued recently from Saudi Arabia. Her employer however said that he cannot afford to pay her pending wages of SLR. 60,000.
Domestic workers have also returned with nails inserted into their bodies, allegedly by employers in Saudi Arabia.
Dilan Pererea, People would die even while living in Srilanka when the time comes fpr death.If abuse is taking place, try to solve that issue instead of all these cardboard talks. Tell me who is not abusing a maid – that happens even in Srilanka even by the polciticians.
We hope this pathetic minister, whose wages and perks such as the official vehicles (Pajeros perhaps) are paid for by the forex earned by the women and men who labour 16 hours a day or more for six days a week, will get his comeuppance one day. We hope.
The minister and his cabal must be condemned for floating this idea of an age limit. Sri Lankans of a reasonbale age must have the freedom guaranteed in the Constitution to go work overseas. Tamilian terrorists were allowed to go to SIngapore for treatment with presidential blessings, strangely enough in Ranil Wickeremesinghe’s time.
Rather than ensuring their rights are protected overseas through diplomats or other agencies, the minister and the FEB is taking the easier option. Ban anyone below 30 from leaving! We must challenge this outrage. The inept, intellectually bankrupt chairman of the FEB Kingsley Ranawaka must be condemned as should the minister. If this policy was brought in Philippines, there would have been another people’s revolution. These half-wits are challenging the migrant workers’ right to livelihood. Protecting the rights of migrant workers is the state’s obligation under relevant international treaties and conventions. These incompetent nincompoos are nto capable of enforcing avalilable safeguards. Why? The diplomats in host countries are clowns of the Foreign Service, or cronies such as those of Rohitha Bogollagama, or current ministers. In some host countries there are only honorary consuls (disinterested, charming fools — mostly foreigners, in the pay of governments). So no one to look after the migrant workers interests in such circumstances.
If this age ban is all right, then parliament, ministries and and even the FEB must be forced to adopt certain restrictive policies with regard to thugs who become poll candidtates, illiterate who become ministers and the inept who are named to the boards such as the Foreign Employment Bureau. Do migrant workers have the right to question their abilities and their appointments? They should. We can start with Kingley Ranawaka.
Ranawaka must be one day held to account by all Sri lankan migrant workers. In a recent case, just this June, of Sri Lankans not paid for 17 months in Iraq, he told the BBC: “If workers are ready to drop the claim for the salaries, we can help them to come back to Sri Lanka,” head of the Foreign Employment Bureau (FEB) Kingsley Ranawaka said. This boorucrat would rather they not get paid. That was his solution. Genius!
Again, this clown explored the easier route, to save his backside.
Migrant workers are regarded as a heroes in a certain country in Southeast Asia and even have a special queue at departing/arriving home airport, and in Sri Lanka, they are not even recognised as employees with rights.
1) Every year more than 300 people are brought back home in coffins, that’s nearly one corpse a day — mostly mothers and sisters. Corpses of many other are never brought home. Certainly not by the FEB.
2) They do not even have a decent duty free allowance to bring a second-hand car home, let alone a new one. Not even allowed to bring a bicycle. But murderous thugs in the legislature and in regional councils can bring Pajeros and Porsche Cayennes. (and so can the cricketers — Ferraris, Maseratis–, who don’t earn foreign exchange for the country; they enrich themselves instead and make sanctimonious speeches) Corrupt Customs officers will allow everyone else with the means and the connections, quiet leeway. They look away.
Migrant workershave been and are the breadwinners of Sri Lanka. Not the Shangri-La investment fo US$500 milllion; not the garments exporters and gem export cartel.
And more than 2-3 million of them (disregard official data; there are thousands upon thousand who are undocumented, working illegally, making a living, sending money home); support about another 8 million back home. Each person overseas, one could safely assume, supports at least 4 other people — parents, siblings and their own families.
3) A migrant worker can’t even bring thrown-away furniture, once a year or one in two years. If they bring a fridge the ”allowance” is used up. Same goes for a washing machine. They can’t bring a TV for themselves and one for their poor brother, or sister. One is too many for Customs crooks, the mafia. Not allowed. Detained.
4) They can’t bring a laster printer for their desktop computer. Detained at Customs. Not even after two years, let alone one. But suitcase traders from India and Bangkok can. They have the agent in Customs, who is generally on call at time of arrival. A whisper in the ear gets the job done. Bags not inspected. Out through the police gate.
5) They can’t bring even small power tools (not even a Bosch drill) to start a small business, when they come home. Banned. Not allowed under the Rs 100,000 maximum ”duty free allowance”. Goods are detained. If not, taxed.
6) The money they deposity in foreign currencies in useless, so-called NRFC accounts, can not be withdrwan in foreign currency later when they come home. Why? Of course, the Treasury has to take the forex for the Pajeros and the Benzes and the Maseratis, and the luxury Volvo buses and garbage trucks, no less.
Sri Lankans and migrants workers in every capital, from Jordan and Dahahran to Kuwait, and from Italy and Korea to Hong Kong, must now unite, wake up and demand their rights be protected, that official representation be provided, and demand that they be treated decently back home, when they arrive. The incompetents of the FEB such as Ranawka, and the minister must be called to account.
Thank you Minister Dilan Perera for saving our young girls from slavery in the Middle East and particularly Saudi Arabia. There are plenty of jobs in the Garment Industry where the value added per worker is much higher.
Philippines and Indonesia are insisting on better working conditions for their workers in the Middle East. Join them and get the help of relevant UN organisations to improve the working conditions in Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries that treat our workers as slaves.
good work dilan perera about time
What a foolish minister this is! What is the point in raising the age limit? Better teach the potential housemaids some martial arts or boxing. A typical ‘our kind of-top down ‘ solution when the problem is at the root level.
This Band Aid Plaster solution to the problem that exists between our Maids and the Middle-east is derisory given the enormity of it. There is indeed a very simple solution and I am amazed our politicians do not pursue it. Almost every country in the Middle-east has enacted satisfactory Labour Laws. All we need is for these same laws to be applicable to our maids and nothing more. We should unite with the other nations that send domestic workers to the Middle-east (some have alas halted because of the ill treatment meted out) and formulate a joint demand for these laws and I have no doubt we will succeed.
This is fool decision. Before sending to middle east educate the law & work.