Sri Lanka government plans to send IDPs for foreign employment

by Suranee | June 7, 2009 at 08:59 pm

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With the refugees still in camps and enduring many hardships, the Sri lankan government plans to create foreign employment opportunities for them.

June 07, Colombo: The Sri Lanka government is planning to create foreign employment opportunities for the internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in welfare centres in the North.

The Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau said they will establish offices in the Northern and Eastern Provinces for this purpose.

According to the chairman, the Foreign Employment Bureau will establish offices in the Northern and Eastern Provinces for this purpose. The first of these two offices will begin operations in Batticaloa this month, Mr. Ranawaka said.

The Sri lanka Foreign Employment Bureau has made it possible for many Sri lankans to find work overseas. Most of the countries were in the Middle East. But not everyone who went to work there would be treated well. Women who went to work as housemaids have either been killed, raped or abused while working in such countries. Amy Waldman highlighted the problems faced by some of the housemaids working in the Middle East 4 years ago in her article "Sri Lankan Maids' High Price for Foreign Jobs."

Hundreds of housemaids have become pregnant, often after rapes, producing children who, until Sri Lanka's Constitution was recently amended, were stateless because their fathers were foreigners. More than 100 women come home dead each year, with most deaths labeled ''natural'' by the host governments, although Sri Lankan officials concede they are powerless to investigate.

Last year, Kingsley Ranawaka said the country plans to minimize the number of housemaids they send to the Middle East because of the number of abuses many women working there have gone through.

COLOMBO, July 30 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka will cut the number of maids it sends to the Middle East, a labour official said, citing increased complaints of abuse by women migrant workers.

"We want to reduce the number of women migrant workers mainly because of complaints we received from those in Middle East countries," Kingsley Ranawaka, the chairman of Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment told Reuters.

It is yet not known whether the civilians who would be sent for foreign employment will be men or women or both, or which countries they will go to.