Housemaids: FEB skirts its own rule

The Foreign Employment Bureau (FEB) has reportedly breached a decision taken by its own board that foreign agencies should be granted approval to send unskilled women workers abroad only after obtaining approval from the relevant Sri Lankan embassies in those countries.

The FEB is said to have directly entertained applications from two foreign employment agencies in Saudi Arabia without referring them to the Sri Lankan Embassy there to deal with the matter. The purpose of making it compulsory for overseas agencies importing unskilled women workers from Sri Lanka to get embassy approval was to minimise various malpractices allegedly committed by those agencies.

The decision taken by the FEB board reads “the board decided that the job order approvals for unskilled women workers including domestic sector women workers should be granted only after obtaining embassy approval for the relevant job order”.

It further added “the board decided that the practice of granting approval for such job orders pending embassy approval should cease with immediate effect”. FEB chairman Jagath Wellawatte said the new procedure helped reduce cheating by foreign agencies of Sri Lankan housemaids as our embassies in those countries could find out about the conduct of those agencies before granting approval.

He denied the FEB had given approval, outside the accepted procedure, to two foreign agencies, adding the issue in those cases was different while refusing to comment further. One agency has been reportedly allowed to recruit 150 housemaids to Saudi Arabia while another agency there has been allowed to recruit 25 women workers.