News
Mixed signals on recruitment of female domestics for overseas jobs
Authorities yesterday distanced themselves from remarks made by a Sri Lankan envoy in West Asia, that Colombo was planning to outlaw overseas job placements of female domestic workers, a senior official said yesterday. Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLFEB) Additional General Manager Mangala Randeniya said there were no such moves as yet. However adding that recruitment of female domestics for overseas employment would not be encouraged at any level.
“We are a democracy, and, therefore, every citizen has a right to travel and work abroad, domestic help or otherwise, and female workers enjoy the same right.”
In the recent past, there has been some serious thinking about stopping female domestic workers going to certain countries in West Asia, following issues such as the beheading of the Sri Lankan maid Rizana Rafiq in Riyadh a year ago, and poor wage record, harassment, abuse etc., by certain employers.
Nevertheless, there was a re-think after several new guidelines were drawn up to protect female workers as well as their individual foreign sponsor, and recruitment has been allowed to take place,” Mr. Randeniya said.
He said the SLFEB, however, did not approve of young mothers taking up employment as domestics or whatever, as it interfered with traditional family duties.
He was responding to remarks made by C.A.H.M. Wijeratne, the Sri Lankan Envoy in Kuwait, to the Arab media this week that Colombo was planning to ban females from taking up work in the domestic category in West Asian countries owing to a multitude of issues.
His claims were however, dismissed by Sri Lanka’s embassy in Oman, which said that there were no moves in that direction. The embassy’s position also attracted strong media attention in the oil-rich state.
Meanwhile, a local migrant rights trade union said yesterday that the Government did not have the right to ban anyone from seeking employment overseas, whatever the circumstance.
“However, there should be more awareness created among migrant workers, so that, they reduce the risk of facing problems in the host country and under their foreign employer,” Palitha Atukorale, President- National Union of Migrant Workers’ Sri Lanka (NUMWSS) told the Sunday Times.
For example, in the Philippines, female domestics are better protected by their government, and are well briefed on their rights, prior to departure.
However, in Sri Lanka it is just the opposite, women are sent in large numbers in an ad hoc manner to fill vacancies, while unscrupulous foreign employment agents and officials make a huge kill,” Mr Atukorale added.