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Some
Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment officers are corrupt - veteran
job agent
"Corruption is rampant in the bureau. Agents are compelled to do 'certain things' at the behest of the authorities. Bureaucracy and red tape is hampering the whole process," noted W.M.P. Aponsu from SPA Agencies at a roundtable discussion on migration issues in Colombo. The workshop billed a "Stakeholder consultation on migration" organised by the Migrant Services Centre (MSC) in collaboration with the American Solidarity Centre was an important consultation ahead of the annual sessions of the International Labour Conference next month which would discuss, for the first time, migration issues. Aponsu, a former President of the Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies (ALFEA) who has been in foreign employment business for a long time, launching a scathing attack on officers of the bureau, suggested that employment agencies were being made scapegoats for difficulties faced by migrant workers when the problem lay at the hands of the SLBFE. He said some bureau officers go to the airport, privately, and send people abroad without proper documentation. "There may be a few errant agencies who are unlicensed ones but don't blame all the problems on the agents," Aponsu said. The former ALFEA chief said he was appalled by the calibre of labour or welfare officers attached to Sri Lankan missions in the Middle East. "One welfare officer got the job probably because he used to prepare kiribath for the minister. There was another who was 60 years old. Some of them can't write letters in either Sinhalese or English. Many of these welfare officers are friends of ministers who don't have a clue about their jobs," he said adding that they were well looked after with an over US $1000 salary, perks, car and accommodation. "Except for a few officers, the rest are a useless lot. There are many complaints against them," he added. Aponsu also revealed the dark side of external migration. He said there were Sri Lankan women who were sent to work as prostitutes in Singapore by illegal agencies. "They went on 14-day visas, spent time at hotels where mostly Indian visitors stay; go across to Malaysia when the visa is over; return for another 14 days; earn money and return to Sri Lanka," he said. William Conklin, outgoing Sri Lanka representative of the American Solidarity Centre, made some strong remarks on the migration issue raising a pertinent question as to why civil society and rights groups in Sri Lanka have thought it fit to ignore migrant workers and their problems. "I am disappointed that only a few organisations like the MSC take up these issues. Is it because these workers are poor, are abroad and are women?" he asked. Conklin, who spent more than six years on his Sri Lankan assignment and is going to Thailand as the representative there, noted that the SLBFE was an inadequate mechanism with no regulatory authority or punitive powers. "The Foreign Ministry too has an important role but has abdicated this role." Conklin expressed the view that it is easy to accuse Arabs of being mean and difficult employers. However the important thing to remember is that exploitation begins at home and "if we can't deal with exploitation here, it is difficult to handle exploitation of the workers overseas," he said. David Soysa, MSC director and also a veteran activist in the migrant worker industry, backed Conklin's argument saying Sri Lanka is struggling to change an 1871 law governing domestic workers. "If we can't protect our local domestic workers, how can we protect Sri Lanka workers abroad?" he said. SLBFE chairman Karunasena Hettiarachchi conceded that he was new to the job and learning the ropes. The foreign employment bureau chief, saying he was an engineer attached to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and that his new assignment was a part-time job, observed that the migration of women has caused a lot of social unrest. |
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