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Deportees from Kuwait and Saudi on the rise
View(s):Nearly a thousand Sri Lankan expatriate workers, mainly women, have been deported from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and the numbers are likely to increase, officials said. The single largest batch of 136 arrived on Friday, officials with the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) stationed at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) told the Sunday Times.
They said the Bureau provided medical assistance where needed and met the travel expenses for the women to travel to their villages. “These people have been held in various detention camps mainly in Kuwait and to a lesser extent in Saudi Arabia for a considerable period of time and we are expecting many more to return to the country,” SLFEB Additional General Manager Mangala Randeniya said.
Other SLFEB officials said many of the returnees had been detained for offences such as visa violations, trading in alcohol and light narcotics, stealing, assault, adultery and prostitution. Association for Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies (ALFEA) president Faizer Maickeen said the returnees from Kuwait had been detained at a police centre in Jalib.
He said the first batch of more than 40 deportees arrived in the last week of August and the flow has been steadily increasing.
He said many of the women went to these countries as domestic aides but had later decamped and been on the run until their arrest and detention.Mr. Maickeen said some had got involved in nefarious activities, including prostitution, to make ends meet.
He said these women had been blacklisted in those countries and would not be allowed to re-enter them.