Desperate migrant workers
View(s):After several decades, Sri Lanka is setting up a new authority to regulate and control employment migration which is the country’s biggest foreign revenue earner.
For many years, migration for foreign employment has been guided by the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) through an Act of Parliament in 1985 and amendments thereafter. At least two million Sri Lankans are temporarily domiciled abroad as workers, mostly in the Middle East.
Last year migrant worker remittances at over US$ 6 billion accounted for 45 per cent of the country’s total foreign exchange revenue, reflecting the importance of this sector.
While the Government’s intentions, one would assume, in setting up an Employment Migration Authority, as reported in last week’s Sunday Times, is honourable, many questions are being raised about its mandate and area of work.
The authority is set to replace the Bureau of Foreign Employment.
The move seems to have won the blessings of ALFEA (Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agents) with its spokesperson Faizer Mackeen, saying all licensed agents would be registered under the proposed Chamber of Foreign Employment Agencies (CFEA). The new chamber will replace ALFEA.
“We were consulted on these developments,” said Mackeen. But migrant worker associations and others involved in the rights and welfare of migrant workers, unaware about these developments, are concerned that there could be abuse of the funds of the new authority, among other issues.
Worker groups say a lot of funds, all raised through contributions from migrants from compulsory registration and other fees, would be required to maintain these eight institutions and their staff that will come under the new Act.
They are the National Advisory Council on Employment Migration, Sri Lanka Employment Migration Authority, Sri Lanka Rata Viruwo Foundation, Overseas Sri Lanka Foundation, Worker’s Welfare Fund, Foreign Employment Promotion Fund, National Chamber of Foreign Employment Agencies and a Board of Review to hear appeals against decisions of the authority.
Migrant worker groups are hoping to meet to discuss the new developments and examine some of the concerns.
Foreign Employment Promotion Minister Dilan Perera has said, in a cabinet memorandum in proposing the new authority, that the focus is aimed at protecting the rights of thousands of migrant workers outside Sri Lanka.
Laudable objective indeed but will it work that way? Despite all the efforts of state agencies governing foreign employment, dozens of women and men face problems overseas including sexual and physical abuse, non-payment of dues, illegal contracts, long working hours and poor working conditions.
Some women have committed suicide while others have been injured in jumping from balconies in attempting to escape. Many women, unable to leave a difficult employer, run away and become illegals – in some cases working for years in that country as an illegal. The Government’s response to this litany of complaints is that they represent less than 10 per cent of those employed abroad!
Among the problems faced by migrant workers is their future on completion of a contract. There are few avenues of employment or options provided for them to be either gainfully employed or invest money in a small business. Efforts so far to teach them various vocations to enable them to set up in business hasn’t been as successful as anticipated, despite various programmes by the authorities.
Agreeably the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment offers many services, according to its website, like school equipment to the children of migrant workers; subsidized housing loans; self-employment loans; pre-departure loans (through other banks), among other benefits. Still there are many more issues confronting migrant workers.
Lack of a voting base is one of the reasons migrant workers don’t have as much clout as garment or tea workers who have strong sectors with powerful associations like the Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), the Ceylon Tea Traders Association or the Planters’ Association, or for that matter unions like the Ceylon Workers Congress (tea) or the Free Trade Zones & General Services Employees’ Union (FTZ&GSEU).
Migrant worker associations have little political clout apart from raising a few issues and demands which are often not taken seriously by the authorities. Employment agents and migrant worker associations are invariably seen as ‘problematic’ rather than as an invaluable source. Agents are also complaining that the Government, through its own employment agency, is involved in recruitment.
The late David Soysa, a strong campaigner for rights for migrant workers, worked hard to secure voting rights for workers but was unsuccessful. Voting rights for workers would lead to stronger associations and unions who would have politicians at their feet, seeking the votes of between three to four million people (which includes the families of migrant workers).
Businesses and workers representing tea or garment sectors wouldn’t have allowed the creation of any new body without proper consultations unlike in the case of migrant workers who are a weaker lot in raising issues.
Consulting only a few groups including job agents in creating a new governance structure for migration, is not good enough. It is still not too late to consult groups involved in the earlier discussion on the National Policy on Migration, on the creation of the new Authority before it becomes law.