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| Sunday, 16 March 2003 |
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Tamils must be given right to use mother tongue by Don Asoka Wijewardena The Parliamentary Select Committee for Human Rights headed by Minister of Employment and Labour Mahinda Samarasinghe during his recent visit to the up-country to investigate human rights violations, has observed that 71 percent of the Tamil population are unable to attend to their day-to-day activities in their own language, either in public or private sector organisations. The committee has also observed sexual harassment, child labour, delay in payment of wages, forcing labourers to work long hours in contravention of the labour rules and regulations, to be some of the key problems. Minister Samarasinghe told the "Sunday Observer" that a special interim report on human rights violations in estates would be submitted to Parliament shortly and added that the committee had made it mandatory for Tamil estate workers to use the Tamil language in all dealings with public sector organisations such as police, banks, GAs offices, for their convenience. The Minister pointed out that human rights violations in estates, where most of the workers were a minority within a minority, needed the close observation of trade unions, human rights organisations in their respective areas, divisional secretaries, private sector organisations and among all loyal citizens, to apprehend the violators. Mr. Samarasinghe said that to resolve work-related problems often arising between the employer and the employee, he had directed all estate superintendents to form "peace committees" in all the estates with the assistance of the police. Some of the estate workers' problems including non-payment of wages on time, lack of health facilities and other minor issues were given due consideration. The committee also decided to appoint all estate superintendents as Justices of the Peace as it was of the view that numerous labour problems arising between the employer and the employee could be amicably settled on estates without recourse to court procedures. The committee also suggested the implementation of several training programmes for estate workers' personal development, leadership skills and labour problems etc. to improve their quality of life. |
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