Controversy over contraception

An international human rights campaigner released a report this week on the plight of Sri Lankan housemaids in West Asia containing the usual problems: harassment, rape, non-payment of wages, being overworked, etc. There was nothing new to add to the growing debate of Sri Lankan migrant workers, except for one astounding fact; would-be migrants are either coerced or forced into contraception through injections prior to departure.

Potential housemaids have told Human Rights Watch (HRW), the New York-based human rights group, that job agents force them to take long-term contraception to prevent pregnancy during employment.

HRW, in a report released in Colombo on November 14, said it documented cases in which prospective domestic female workers have been administered injectable contraceptives without their informed consent and, in some cases, against their expressed will. The report titled “Exported and Exposed; Abuses against Sri Lankan Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates”, deals with the dilemma of over 125,000 Sri Lankan women who migrate to West Asia as domestic workers every year. “Their earnings have made a significant contribution to the Sri Lankan economy, yet many migrant women resort to this survival strategy at profound personal cost,” the report said.

The report has the usual reprimand of the Sri Lankan government and labour receiving countries for the abuse of Sri Lankan housemaids and makes a series of recommendations that are unlikely to catch the attention of the government, as in the case of previous reports.

But the issue of forced contraception plus the timing of the report – at a time a new Parliamentary Select Committee is to meet to discuss migrant worker issues — are certain to wake up the authorities.“This issue (contraception to prevent pregnancy) has been there but no one talks about it,” says David Soysa, Director of the Migrant Workers’ Centre. “One of the problems is that pregnancy is a violation of a contract, as much as the employee has to be free of disease and other medical problems,” he said.

“The main issue here is about workers being fully informed and that is not happening. The women are not told what these tests are,” he said. A clean medical certificate is compulsory for every worker migrating to West Asia and the tests are conducted by a panel of doctors in Colombo under the strict supervision of representatives of labour receiving countries. A second medical test is also compulsory within three months after the worker starts in her or his job.

Suraj Dandeniya, Chairman of the Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agents (ALFEA), says pregnancy tests and the use of contraceptive devices are to ensure the prospective worker is not pregnant when she takes up her job a few weeks later. “Very often these tests are done one to two months before they leave and anything (including getting pregnant) could happen during this period. So the job agent has to take precautions even though the worker assures that such a situation won’t happen.”

Dandeniya says that local agents are responsible for any problem that would arise within a three month period after a domestic starts working. If there is a problem and the worker is sent back by the employer for reasons including inability to handle the job, being pregnant or some other issue, the Sri Lankan agent has to bear the cost of repatriation and furthermore send a replacement at his own cost. This is one of the reasons that local agents make doubly sure that workers have a clean bill of health during the first three months of their employment, in terms of the contract.

But Dandeniya agrees these are problems and welcomes the setting up of a parliamentary committee to come up with a solution that would be acceptable to all parties concerned. “The parliamentary committee is a good independent mechanism to look at these issues as all of us involved in the industry – workers, agents, worker rights groups, etc – would have our own biases. Yes … we are all concerned about the worker but also remember we need to protect our rights too. The parliamentary mechanism will help to come up with a mechanism that would be acceptable to all sides,” he said.

HRW said in its report that the right to bodily autonomy and integrity guarantees the right of all individuals to refuse unwanted medical treatment. It said in some cases, clinic personnel told prospective domestic workers the injection was to prevent pregnancy, and in other cases, medical personnel did not tell domestic workers anything until after they administered the injection.

One domestic worker was quoted in the report as saying that at the medical exam, “they asked me to get an injection, but I refused. The doctor told me at the medical centre that I had to take an injection which prevents me from giving birth to a child if anything goes wrong. I refused and the doctor called the agent. He told me….that if anything [sexual] happens without my consent they would not be responsible, because I refused to take the injection.”

CARAM Asia, a regional network working on migrant health issues which carried out a study recently on mandatory testing, says a number of prospective female migrant workers in Sri Lanka have been given the contraceptive ‘medroxyprogesterone’ during mandatory pre-departure medical tests.

HRW said several women interviewed said their labour agent or subagent coerced them into getting the birth control injection. In some cases, labour agents told domestic workers that if they declined the injected contraceptive, the agency would not assist them if they became pregnant, even in case of rape by their employer.

One worker, Paramitha E. was quoted as saying, “I did not have any choice. I was told if I went without the injection and if I get pregnant, then I would have to pay my own way and the agent wouldn’t be responsible. But if I went with the injection and anything happened then the agent would be responsible.”

HRW quoted an official from the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment(SLBFE) as saying they are aware of the contraceptive injections being administered during the compulsory medical test although it is not a government policy. Some workers say that they didn’t complain about this to the SLBFE because they were not aware of their right to refuse the injectable contraceptive and in some cases did not know what medication had been administered.

The key points in the report are that labour laws in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), exclude domestic workers.