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Sunday, 27 April 2014

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Better deal for migrant workers

Migrant labour is one of the biggest foreign exchange earners for the country, recording nearly US$ seven billion annually. This is indeed a vast sum that goes for development and social welfare in the country. Nearly 1.5 million Sri Lankans live and work in a number of countries including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Italy and Oman, not counting those who are permanently domiciled in countries such as Canada, US, UK and Australia.

There have been several interesting development on the foreign labour front in the past week. The Government has suspended sending workers to Libya, saying the conditions in that country were not very favourable. This is a pro-active, commendable step, given that working conditions must be ideal for workers to perform their duties.

Quite apart from the working conditions, the unsettled political and social environment in that country may not be conducive to our workers. Cases of assassinations and kidnappings targeting politicians, security officials and their family members have increased in Libya as authorities attempt to crack down on armed groups. The security and safety of Sri Lankan workers must be given priority, regardless of where they are in the world. If the hosts cannot assure that, it is safer to stop sending new migrants and recall the workers already there, if an extreme situation develops. In fact, the authorities are planning to repatriate the Sri Lankan workers now living in strife-torn Libya.

On the other hand, many countries with substantial populations of Sri Lankan and Asian workers are taking many steps to ensure workers’ welfare on their own. For example, the Saudi Arabian government has proposed the launching of a hotline on which domestic workers and professional expatriates can lodge complaints. The helpline facility will be available in eight languages, an official said. (It is not known yet whether Sinhala and Tamil are included, but English definitely is).

The helpline call centre, under the country's Labour Ministry, will answer inquiries and inform domestic workers of their rights and duties, Xinhua reported citing Al Eqtisadia newspaper.

Complaints

The Saudi Labour Ministry will launch an investigation if it receives complaints and will refer the case to the legal authorities concerned, if necessary. There are around 1.2 million domestic workers, including Sri Lankans, in Saudi Arabia. They also come from India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh, among others.

This is a step worthy of emulation by other countries which employ Sri Lankans and workers from other Asian countries. The Sri Lankan embassies and authorities must extend their fullest cooperation to this venture. Up to now, the Sri Lankan embassy in the respective countries was the only place where workers facing various problems could seek help from and many embassies are deluged with requests from workers to address their woes.

Some of them even have a centre where workers, especially females, can live for a couple of weeks until their problem is resolved or their papers are processed for repatriation or compensation.

With the latest move by the Saudi authorities, expat workers will have a direct link to the authorities in the host country itself. They will be in a far better position to offer help and solutions to the affected workers by mediating with the employers and other Saudi Government agencies. The legal systems of Saudi Arabia and many other Middle East countries are very complex, as demonstrated by the Rizana Nafeek case, and the involvement of their own labour officials in dispute resolution may lessen that complexity. Besides, workers with little or no knowledge of Arabic and English will be able to talk to an officer/operator in their own native language and explain the issue(s) clearly. It is probably a toll-free telephone line accessible from anywhere in the Kingdom, so there will be no cost to the caller as well apart from the cost of transport if a caller without access to a mobile phone has to travel to the nearest telephone box.. Depending on the success of this program, Sri Lanka authorities could suggest the implementation of similar systems in other countries where our expatriates work. It will benefit not only Sri Lankans, but also workers from other South Asian/South East Asian countries.

In fact such an alliance will prove to be useful in negotiating various labour agreements with countries that accept our migrant labour. It will definitely give us more clout and leverage at the negotiating table.

Alliance

Individual country-to-country agreements have their value, but we will be stronger if there is a multi-country alliance which backs any moves taken to improve the living and working conditions of our expatriate workers.

SAARC itself does have a role to play in these labour negotiations, but it could also be a loose group of countries that offer migrant labour to other countries. It could be a powerful voice for advocating the strengthening of labour laws in the host countries. Despite the best efforts of governments and their law enforcement authorities, there is a lot of trafficking of illegal migrant labour including children. Sri Lanka has made vast strides in this pledge, having made registration mandatory for all those leaving abroad for employment and having adopted a zero tolerance policy on child employment and trafficking.

Recently, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons especially in Children and Women shared the plight of trafficked migrants in different parts of the world and called for serious measures to break the slave trade and ensure the protection of victims. She stressed that human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry as trafficking knows no borders. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) reported that 21 million women, men and children are entrapped in slavery all over the world. This is another reason why multilateral and Government-to-Government legal agreements are essential to ensure a more formal migrant labour system that will close any existing loopholes for trafficking of persons for labour purposes. Such endeavours are vital to ensure the welfare and well-being of labour migrants everywhere.

 

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