Migrant worker challenges Govt. over restrictive rule
A courageous Sri Lankan migrant worker is challenging the Government over a new rule where women must apparently be permitted by their husbands or other officials to work abroad as domestic workers, saying it is not only a gender bias but also violates her fundamental rights to equality under the Constitution.
Filing a petition in the Supreme Court through her attorney and migrant rights activist Lakshan Dias, 39 year-old Karunanayakage Nilmini Kularathna from Sri Jayawardanepura, Kotte says she is protesting not only on her behalf but as “public interest litigation on behalf of all the women who are victimized like her”.
Ms. Kularatna’s attempt to secure employment abroad has been thwarted by this new circular. Apart from claiming that the rule violates her fundamental right to travel, she says that she is separated from her husband and has no children from that marriage. Her husband was previously married and has three children from that marriage.
Among the respondents cited in the petition are Dilan Perera, Minister of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare, Nissanka N. Wijeratne, Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare and Wijaya Undupitiya, owner of recruitment company Sarana Seva Pvt Ltd (through which she obtained the job offer).
No date has been set for the leave-to-proceed petition to be heard before court. The petitioner says that if she is not cleared for travel on or before September 28, 2013 or on the date requested by her employer in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), “the petitioner`s employer will cancel petitioner`s visa as he cannot wait for 60 days for the petitioner to arrive in his employment”.
The circular dated June 6, 2013 from the Chaiman of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLFBE) refers to a mandatory requirement of obtaining a “clearing certificate for domestic sector female workers preventing unqualified domestic housekeepers going abroad.”
The circular said that many domestic workers were going abroad without informing the authorities of the actual state of affairs at home in Sri Lanka or their illnesses which cannot be detected through medical investigation.
“Therefore all the licensed foreign employment agents are informed to get an assurance from such workers for a clearance of their state of affairs at home and for all other clearances. In such a case, if such issues are revealed after going abroad and request is made for repatriation, the local agent through which such an employee is recruited is responsible for repatriation of the employee at the cost of the local agent,” the loosely-worded circular said. The petitioner who returned from Jordan in December 2009 after an earlier stint overseas decided again to go abroad as she had financial difficulties. Ms. Kularatna said she was asked by her recruitment agenct, Sarana Seva Pvt. Ltd to bring a recommendation from the Divisional Secretary and Grama Niladhari as per SLFBE circular. The Grama Niladhari refused any such recommendation, dashing her hopes of being employed abroad. She says she is a citizen with equal rights who doesn’t need the permission of any state official or others to decide on her movements which can only be restricted by law ‘on the grounds of national security or national economy’. She says she is being treated differently and unequally as the circular doesn’t apply to men.
“Not only women but men too are responsible for looking after children and family responsibilities and therefore this circular is biased and discriminates against women,” she has complained, adding that it is a repressive action to prevent
women to decide their own life and “such actions are primitive and not suitable for a civilized society”.
The petitioner says that the circular does not restrict men leaving the country, leaving behind their children and children also need father’s protection and love. “If this action applies only to mothers then it is violating the principles and norms of the articles 12(1), (2) of the Constitution of Sri Lanka.”
She said there are many women who have no option other than to become a breadwinner in whatever way while there are many men who leave their families and children without any income source and they do not have any restrictions.
She says that exposing women to such a screening process will subject them to abuses “as in difficult circumstances women have no option therefore can be target of undue favours by the officials”.
Ms. Kularatna says that requiring a husband`s or any other person’s consent to seek foreign employment puts “women in a dependent, submissive and sub slavery position while we live in a world that respects equality”.
She said that she has not paid any money or any fee to the recruiting agent that processed her application for visa. Instead she will be paid three months contracted salary as a bonus for accepting the job offer prior to her leaving. She plans to use this money to redeem her jewellery that she has mortgaged.
The petitioner is seeking an order permitting her to go abroad without the rule seeking the approval of her husband or any other party’s permission; an order that women are treated equally and that SLFBE regulations be amended accordingly, and grant compensation of 27 months’ salary equivalent to UAE Dirhams 800 per month is her job visa is cancelled through no fault of hers.
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