SRI LANKA: Returning Migrant Women Get Shelter, Time to Think

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, May 21 2003 (IPS) - Sithy Umma can count herself lucky. Returning from Saudi Arabia pregnant after being raped by her employer’s brother in 1993, she was accepted by her husband when she came home to Sri Lanka.

That is unlike many other migrant workers in similar circumstances who fear going back to their families and hometowns for fear of being rejected.

"I think I am lucky to have such a husband who is very fond of Fathima," Umma said, sitting in her small wattle and daub hut and recalling those anxious moments in 1993 when her daughter Fathima, now 10 years old, was born.

Still, two years ago the family had to move to Kalpitiya, 150 kilometres north-west of Colombo, from a north-central village to escape inquisitive neighbours.

Sexual violence and other forms of abuse are risks that Sri Lankan women face working overseas. One million Sri Lankans, most of them women, are overseas migrant workers. More than 70 percent of them are domestic workers.

Those who come home pregnant or accompanied by a child after being raped by either their employer, his son or a relative often face stigma at home. In some cases, the returning women married other foreign workers but were abandoned when they became pregnant.

"I cannot go home like this. My husband will kill me. It will also be the end of our family life," sighs pregnant 24-year-old Latha at a haven run by the Salvation Army in Colombo.

At least for now though, women like Latha have a temporary place to turn to, including a government-run facility near the Colombo airport where they can rest, deliver babies without their families’ knowledge or think about what to do next.

"They come with different problems. Some are ill, others are disabled. Some have had babies there while others are pregnant. Some have not been paid salaries and others do not know how to get home,” explained Kusum Kalupahana, the officer in charge of the Sahana Piyasa (Home of Comfort) centre set on the seaside.

The home is increasingly becoming a hideout for nervous would-be mothers, even though it also takes in men who need help if they are stranded or sick.

"Sahana Piyasa is for women because they are in a more vulnerable situation than men,”said Tharanga Hettiarachchi, manager of the centre, run by the state-owned Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau (SLFEB) that also sends the country’s workers overseas.

Pregnant domestic workers aware of Sahana Piyasa make a beeline for the centre where they decide whether to keep their child or go for adoption.

More than 1,000 migrant workers, mostly women, came to the centre in April alone. Among them were 12 pregnant women, two with babies and 50 others who complained of sexual harassment.

At Sahana Piyasa, a hot meal and a comfortable bed awaits workers while the staff looks into their needs. No strictures are made, no morality preached, only the troubled female worker’s plight is discussed.

The centre was set up as a halfway home for workers who return on late-night flights and are unable to go to their villages, but soon became a temporary haven for women workers who are pregnant or for various reasons unable to go home immediately.

In Sithy Umma’s case, she had returned to Sri Lanka and was staying at a small hotel in Colombo pondering on her future before her husband discovered she had returned.

"I was told that a woman resembling my wife was staying at a motel in Colombo and I went in search of her," said Mohamed Muhsin, a farmer who lost his right leg in a Tamil rebel attack in Mannar, further north where the family lived. "I wanted Umma to come back and promised to take care of her baby too."

Latha, who went to Saudi Arabia in August 2002, said she was raped by the 18-year-old son of her employer. "Otherwise everything else was okay. The mama (mistress) and ‘baba’ (master) treated me well. I did all the work. They gave me food to eat."

She fled to the Sri Lankan embassy and begged officials to send her back home. At one point, she tried to get rid of the foetus.

Sahana Piyasa’s Kalupahana says that pregnant workers often do not want to go home until they have delivered their babies. "They also threaten to commit suicide,” she says.

”Though most of them say they have been raped, there may be instances when they have willingly gone with someone, but it is not our mandate to censure them. We take them in and try to make them comfortable,” she adds.

Sahana Piyasa cannot keep them for a long time, but has an arrangement with the Salvation Army to provide the women shelter until they have their babies and decide whether to take them home or give them for adoption.

Latha, who returned in January, is due to deliver her baby in early June, and three other women have already given birth at the Salvation Army home.

Sriyani, 41, has a chubby boy born on Feb. 3 and hopes to have him adopted before she goes back to her home and family of husband and four children. She was sexually assaulted by a fellow Sri Lankan worker in Saudi Arabia – yet still hopes to go back to the Gulf to earn some money for her family.

Nirmala, 28 was assaulted by her employer’s son. She came back on Mar. 12, without wages, and had her baby daughter on Apr. 3. "I cannot go home until I give the baby away," she says.