By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO, May 11 2007 (IPS)

Besieged by protests from local and international rights groups, the Sri Lankan government is reconsidering a ban on young mothers seeking employment abroad.

The March ban was announced by minister of child development and women&#39s empowerment Sumedha G. Jayasena to protect children under five years of age and to limit the neglect of home and the family.

But the plan drew widespread condemnation from rights and migrant worker groups, including the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), calling it the violation of a basic fundamental right.

While most protestors acknowledge that women leaving young children behind to find work abroad creates serious social problems, they noted that a blanket ban was not the solution and urged the government to create supportive structures.

The Manila-based Migrant Forum in Asia – a network of more than 290 migrant organisations, migrant rights advocates and trade unions from 14 countries in Asia – said: "We believe the ban violates women&#39s rights to freedom of mobility."

Some groups even threatened to take the government to court on the question of the fundamental right of citizens to travel.

Against this background, Sri Lankan minister of foreign employment, promotion and welfare Keheliya Rambukwella told reporters on Tuesday that the plan was being reconsidered. "It has been approved by cabinet but is yet to be ratified by parliament. There are many issues being raised for and against, including the right to travel issue. We are looking at the issues again and we will take a decision based on what is best for the migrant worker," he said.

"Various people can say various things but ultimately the ministry and the affairs of migrant workers comes under my purview and we take the decisions," he said, responding to comments made by his colleague, foreign minister Rohitha Bogollagama, in Saudi Arabia last month that the government was planning also to ban all Sri Lankan women under 25 years from working abroad due to the social problems at home.

Rambukwella said his ministry is working hard to raise the profile of migrant workers such as by re-designating ‘housemaids&#39 as ‘housekeepers&#39 or ‘caregivers&#39 and were also exploring new markets capable of providing higher salaries and working conditions.

A new pre-departure orientation centre, where mostly housemaids and labourers would receive three days of intensive training and awareness on what to expect at the other end, is being set up near the Colombo international airport.

L.K. Ruhunuge, deputy general manager at the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), said the three-day crash course will deal with country- specific issues, language, culture, counselling and foreign environment. "The men and women preparing to go abroad will be housed at this centre which can accommodate 1,000 to 1,500 people and from there they would go straight to the airport," he said.

Rambukwella said this would be a compulsory requirement for housemaids and low-skilled workers as it is beneficial to them and to the country.

The new rule which applies to more than 60 percent of Sri Lankans getting jobs overseas would considerably reduce the number of family, relatives and friends accompanying a migrant worker to the airport. Thousands of Sri Lankans in vans and mini-buses crowd the airport daily either to wish those going overseas or greet those returning.

Separately, the government has restricted the number of visitors to the airport to two per passenger as a security measure after Tamil Tiger planes made two forays over the airport recently.

The authorities with the help of the International Labour Organisation and migrant worker groups are also discussing the formulation of a national policy on migration as a follow up to the UN Convention on Migrants and the Protection of their Families which Sri Lanka has ratified.

SLBFE&#39s Ruhunuge said the new guidelines will provide clear cut policies, protect rights and welfare of workers, recognition, national level awareness, migration limits and trafficking.

Rambukwella said legislation is also being drafted to punish those involved in trafficking of migrants and also over stayers. "Often we have reports of Sri Lankans overstaying their visas which is bad for the country," he said.

Officials said Sri Lanka was also tapping new markets outside the traditional Middle East which absorbs some one million of the 1.5 million Sri Lankans working overseas. These new emerging markets include Korea, Japan, Norway, Israel and Europe.

Remittances by Sri Lankan workers abroad totalled 2.5 billion US dollars last year, making it the highest foreign exchange earner as has been the case in previous years.

But both migrant worker support groups and job agents are unhappy with the government for different reasons.

Activists like David Soysa, veteran director at the Migrant Workers Centre (MWC), believe the government says many things but does little. "The biggest problem of the workers is their rights in the workplace and the receiving country. They have no rights there and are often exploited," he said, adding that job agents should share the blame.

In February, a group of Sri Lankan women working at a garment factory in Mauritius returned home complaining of long working hours and poor living conditions.

"We were forced to sleep in a room that had 60 occupants cramped together," said Amali Wijesinghe, a worker-turned matron. "I joined as a sewing machine operator but when I began fighting for the rights of the workers, they promoted me to matron, raised my salary in the hope I would be silenced. But that didn&#39t change me," she told IPS. More than 200 Sri Lankan workers were deported in February after they protested over the conditions.

Stories of poor accomodation, longer-than-agreed to working hours and non-payment of dues are commonplace, but the most exploited are domestic workers who have no one to turn to for support.

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