SRI LANKA: Social Price of Labour Exports Rising – President

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Aug 2 2002 (IPS) - Thousands of young Sri Lankan women work hard in the Middle East to support their families back home, but what worries President Chandrika Kumaratunga most is that they leave behind a trail of social problems with few easy remedies.

“The case of the migrant worker is a complex issue and the victims – often for life – are innocent children,” the Sri Lankan leader told IPS in a rare interview this week.

She said social problems like incest, adultery, child abuse and child neglect often have few remedies through politics and public policies, so “perhaps the answers are of a moral and spiritual nature”.

But Kumaratunga, who was replying to written questions sent to her, noted that the increasing number of women in the expatriate workforce and their new earning power also made them a social segment with a lot of clout.

In recent months, trade unions backing migrant workers have been campaigning for voting rights for women abroad. Last month, the government further acknowledged their contribution to the economy by opening an exclusive lounge at the airport for them.

Kumaratunga agrees that female migrant workers, who represent the majority of the one million Sri Lankans working in the Middle East, leave behind a host of negatives like broken families, neglected children, alcoholic and unfaithful husbands and incest.

“There are no easy solutions,” she said. “We have tried to educate the women about investing and saving. Many do invest in a home and education for their children. We should perhaps encourage the young and single to go as migrant workers rather than mothers.”

She rejected a growing view in society that women should be restrained from working abroad as domestic workers particularly because of abuse by foreign employers and social upheaval at home, saying the government should not dictate to women.

Migrant workers remit more than one million dollars a year, the large quantum of foreign exchange for the country.

“We need to work with home governments to ensure proper safeguards for our women. Perhaps there is a role for NGOs and other voluntary organisations to assist our women who are abroad,” she added.

The 57-year old president, now fighting the biggest political battle of her career having to work with a hostile opposition government, also spoke on a range of issues including the peace process between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels, education reforms and violence against women and children.

Kumaratunga, despite a bitter confrontation with some ministers in Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) government and her own distrust of Tamil rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, said she was prepared to talk peace with the rebel leader and was backing the government’s peace initiatives wholeheartedly.

“I am prepared to negotiate with Mr Prabhakaran of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) on behalf of the country,” said the president, who lost her eye in an assassination attempt by Tamil Tiger rebels two years ago.

“After all I corresponded with him during our previous peace bid in 1995,” she said when asked whether she was prepared to sit at the same table with the rebel leader and discuss a political solution to end the 19-year long ethnic conflict.

The government and Tamil rebels are due to start peace talks in Thailand in August or September, and a ceasefire between the two sides that has been holding since December. More than 64,000 people have died in the bloody revolt for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Since her ruling People’s Alliance (PA) lost parliamentary polls in December 2001 to the UNP, Kumaratunga has had a lone battle in the Cabinet against allegations of corruption.

While facing political turmoil, she says she has a clear vision on the future of her teenage children – they would not take to politics.

“I believe I have convinced and persuaded my children to pursue their careers and serve their communities through private rather than public life,” she said, adding she had no regrets about her turbulent life, in which she lost both her father and husband to political assassins.

If her children — both studying in British universities — follow the advice of their mother, it would bring the curtain down on the Bandaranaike dynasty in politics, one of the most prominent political families in South Asia.

Kumaratunga’s brother and sister are both in their mid to late 50s and are either unmarried or divorced.

Their father, Solomon Dias, was shot dead by a Buddhist monk when he was prime minister in 1959. Their mother Sirimavo survived longer and was prime minister for three different terms until her death through illness two years ago.

Kumaratunga’s actor-turned politician husband, Vijaya, was killed by suspected left-wing rebels in 1988.

The Bandaranaike family, along with the Gandhis in India and the Bhuttos in Pakistan, were the dominant political families that straddled the political spectrum in South Asia for close to half a century.

This is the first time that Kumaratunga has expressed a wish that her children should give a wide berth to politics.

“There has clearly been a heavy price my family and I have paid in the cause of public service and public office,” the president said when asked whether she had regrets over being surrounded by security and not being able to spend time with her children.

“The constant vitriolic criticism directed at me is a soul-destroying character assassination that is almost as hard to bear and has been difficult on my children too, to have their mother foul-mouthed in the vilest manner,” she added. “But this is part and parcel of public life in this country, especially if you are not part of the establishment.”

Two weeks ago, the prime minister turned down a request by Kumaratunga to sack controversial Commerce Minister Ravi Karunanayake, who has been the president’s bitterest critic in Cabinet.

But the president sent another letter citing powers under the constitution which gave her the right to appoint or dismiss ministers, putting the shaky seven-month co-habitation arrangement between the two opposing parties – the People’s Alliance and the United Nations Party — in disarray.

Yet despite the acrimony, Kumaratunga says she is committed to working with the government on the peace process.

She suggested that it is necessary to lift the ethnic problem from the local political divide and make it a consensus policy, like the PA-UNP agreement on pursuing a market economy for Sri Lanka.