Migrant workers in Middle East:

Social cost of a dollar spinner

by Indeewara Thilakarathne and Ranga Chandrarathne

As a Sri Lankan house-maid faces death sentence in oil rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the social cost of the principal dollar spinner emerges to the surface. Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan baby sitter was assigned to take care of a Saudi family's infant child in May 2005.

After two weeks on the job, the child died whilst under Rizanas care and the parents claimed that Rizana had strangled the child. Although she had confessed to the crime, subsequently she explained that she made the confession under duress.

According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, Nafeek has said that the child died during bottle-feeding and that she tried to resuscitate the child and call for help. However, she was tried with no legal representation.

The story turned a tragic leaf as on June 16 a three-member bench of the Dawadmi High found Rizana guilty of murder of a four-month old infant in a Saudi home.

In her statement to the court, Rizana claimed that at the time of her arrival in Saudi Arabia, she was 17 years old and that a recruitment agent had falsified her documents, having obtained her passport by overstating her true age by six years.

According to Saudi legal system, death penalty is applied for wide rage of offenses with short court proceedings well below the international standards for a fair trial and the trial takes place behind closed doors.

Defendants normally do not offer formal representation by a lawyer. In many cases defendants are not informed of the process of legal proceedings against them. The accused may be convicted solely on the basis of confessions obtained under duress, torture or deception.

The rate of executions in Saudi Arabia has recently increased dramatically, and the authorities have executed at least 100 people so far this year, although the true figure may be much higher. Death sentences in Saudi Arabia are carried out by beheading.

Saudi Arabia assured the Committee on the Rights of the Child (who monitor states' implementation of the CRC) in January 2006 that no children had been executed in the country since the CRC came into force in Saudi Arabia in 1997.

The comment falls short of the commitment required by the CRC, which demands that no one is executed for crimes committed when they were under 18, irrespective of their current age.

According to statistics, by 2005, the female prospective employees left Sri Lanka in search of secure employment, primarily, for Middle Eastern countries accounted for 59 per cent of the total number of migrant workers.

The figure has a significant impact on society as most of the migrant workers are in their prime of youth (20-45 average ages) at the time they left for work and would stay a long time in their host countries, at a stretch, depending on the contract.

Apart from the abject poverty, host of social issues have contributed to increasing number of female migrant workers who accounted for a large chunk of net foreign earnings. Conservative family backgrounds and husbands harassment has been cited by one female migrant worker as reasons for her seeking employment in a Middle Eastern country.

While some of the families well utilized the remittance of migrant workers, investing in property and in children's education, most of them, particularly, husbands whose wives were in Middle East have wasted foreign currency on frivolous activities totally disregarding children needs.

A migrant female worker when she returned after ten years working in the Middle East found that her husband had wasted her earnings while carrying on an extra-marital affair with a woman. However, the worst scenario is the instances where daughters have been sexually abused at the hand of their fathers, thus becoming silent victims.

It is high time that the authorities and policy makers take a fresh look at the migrant workers and the issues these families face in order to charter a foreign employment policy which would place much emphasis on training of workers who are going for menial jobs. Foreign employment policy should also be changed to encourage Sri Lankan professionals such as doctors and Engineers to work in foreign exchange labour market with a view to increase the net foreign earnings.

It is a pathetic state of affairs that society still looks down on migrant workers though their remittances well exceed the total foreign exchange earnings from tea, rubber and coconut.

Social security schemes for migrant workers families should be introduced in addition to setting up of care-giving mechanisms such Day Care Centres for migrant workers children.

Consular service of the Sri Lankan missions abroad, especially in Middle East countries should have to be improved with emphasis on catering to the Sri Lankan migrant community.

If the social security systems does not improve for migrant workers and their families, the social cost of migrant workers would be very high, endangering the very existence of the society and their hard-earned foreign currency would be of no use.

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