Minister for Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare Dilan Perera made a surprise visit to labour camps in Qatar to check the living conditions of the Sri Lankan workers. The Minister in currently visiting Qatar to attend the Doha Forum.
Dilan Perera, Sri Lanka’s Minister for Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare, is actually responsible for the wellbeing of overseas Sri Lankan workers.
A vast majority of the Sri Lankan workforce in Qatar is low-income and concentrated in the unorganised construction sector. Many work in cleaning companies. Rough estimates put the number of Sri Lankan workers in Qatar at around 100,000.
The purpose of Perera’s impromptu visit to the labor lodgings was to see first-hand how his low-income compatriots worked and lived. It is learnt that the minister found some labour camps in a bad state although he was satisfied with facilities in a majority of them. He didn’t like two labour lodgings and asked embassy officials to take up the issue with authorities. (The Peninsula)