ISSN: 1391 - 0531
Sunday March 16, 2008
Vol. 42 - No 42
News  

Govt. to discourage housemaid recruitment

By Madhushala Senaratne

The Government is to work towards reducing the number of unskilled domestic workers seeking employment abroad and promote skilled workers instead, although questions remain on the facilities available for such a move.

According to Foreign Employment Bureau (FEB) figures, in 2007, of the 217,306 Sri Lankans who departed for foreign employment, 121,076 were housemaids while the revenue earned amounted to over Rs 250 billion.

“This is not a ban on those travelling as housemaids. The President gave a direction to introduce new training for these unskilled workers so that we will be able to convert them into skilled and semi-skilled workers such as nurses and attendants”, FEB Chairman Kingsley Ranawaka told The Sunday Times.

At a regular meeting with the Ministry Secretaries last week the President told the Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare Ministry Secretary to take effective steps to reduce the recruitment and employment of Sri Lankan women as housemaids abroad by the end of the year. The sole breadwinner of a family in most cases, the harassment and abuses faced by domestic workers in West Asian countries had also been an issue of concern. Mr. Ranawaka said that the introduction of new training programmes for the unskilled workers would enhance their job security, ensure an improved pay and provide them with self-employment opportunities.

He added that training would also be provided for husbands of domestic workers as in most cases with the husbands been uneducated and having no skills or qualification the women are left with little choice but to seek employment abroad.

“We already provide training to the housemaids before they go abroad, but it needs to be a collaborative process”, Mr. Ranawaka said, calling on other Government institutions as well as the private sector to play a greater role in educating and training such unskilled workers enabling them to gain better employment.

“The Education Ministry also has to play a major role because such people lack a proper education”, Mr. Ranawaka said. He added that amendments would soon be made to the existing Foreign Employment Act, including new measures that focuses on promoting skilled workers, instead of housemaids.

“Measures would also be taken to register the sub agents”, he said, adding that the poor pay large sums of money to the sub agents who win their trust by promising them a job and a regular income, although a stable employment is not guaranteed once they travel abroad.

Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Empowerment Secretary Ms. Indrani Sugathadasa said that this would be a gradual process. Last year, a proposal was made to the Cabinet by the Ministry to restrict mothers with children under five seeking employment abroad as housemaids.

“We got the approval of the Cabinet and we submitted a set of proposals to the FEB to identify those having children under the age of five. It’s not easy to identify how many children a worker would have and we suggested an application form where accurate information on the children could be provided,” she said.

F. Fahir, President of the Akkaraipattu Women’s Association, said that more job opportunities should be available for the women, as well as training and other facilities. “This would then reduce the number of women travelling abroad as domestic workers”, she said, adding that the Government and Non-Governmental Organizations should play a major role in helping these villagers with self-employment.

“Families are disturbed and children are neglected when women go abroad, but they need the money. There should be other alternatives for these women and families,” she said.

Association for Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies (ALFIA) Secretary T. L. D. S. Wijechandra, said that although 90% of the recruitment agencies housemaids, the agencies would work towards promoting skilled and semi-skilled workers. “However we would not stop those travelling as housemaids, as it is upto them”, he said.

 
Top to the page  |  E-mail  |  views[1]


Reproduction of articles permitted when used without any alterations to contents and a link to the source page.
© Copyright 2008 | Wijeya Newspapers Ltd.Colombo. Sri Lanka. All Rights Reserved.