C.A.H.M. Wijeratne told Arab News on Sunday that one particular worker from his country, Nihal Nikarawetiya, who had come to Kuwait as a domestic helper was found in Saudi Arabia after being reported missing.

“We found out that the person was missing from his home after complaints received from his family back home,” the ambassador said.

The envoy said he sent details about Nikarawetiya to all Sri Lankan missions in the region seeking their assistance to locate him. “Consequently, we found him in Saudi Arabia,” he added.

The worker had stayed in Kuwait for only 20 days. His sponsor had sent him to the Kingdom for a farm job. The worker is currently in the custody of the Sri Lankan Embassy, according to sources from the mission in Riyadh.

Wijeratne said the Sri Lankan mission in Riyadh had communicated with its counterpart in Kuwait saying a person matching his description was working in a remote farm in the Al-Qassim region.

“This is a sad situation that has been happening in Kuwait recently,” the envoy said, blaming recruiting agents who do not disclose the nature of work to employees they post overseas.

The Sri Lankan ambassador said some agents even send pregnant women as housemaids to Kuwait.

“They fleece the money from the desperate sponsor who needs a maidservant at his house and send them people who will not be able to work for more than three months in the country.”

He added that the poor Kuwaiti sponsor loses the money spent on recruiting the maid from Colombo.

The envoy lamented that such malpractices are still happening despite all preventive measures undertaken by the government of Sri Lanka.

He said a majority of the runaway maids who seek refuge at the mission are women who have come to Kuwait several times. “They come here and work for three months and then come to the embassy claiming they have some family problems so they can go home,” the envoy said, indicating such maids have frequented Kuwait more than three times.

“As a mission, we go all out to help maids who are really experiencing problems,” Wijeratne said.

He added some social service organizations such as the Indian Women's Community, HOPE, the Salavation Army and Kuwait Airways always come forward to help stranded maids go home.

Besides these organizations, he said the mission had set up a Labor Welfare Fund to help these people. “There are some 120,000 Lankans deployed in Kuwait. Compared to their population in Kuwait, the number of complaints from maidservants is minimal,” the diplomat said.

The Sri Lankan Embassy in Kuwait receives on average 10 runaway maids daily.

“Out of the 240 housemaids in the mission's safe house, we have repatriated around 60 maids,” he said, adding that repatriation is a continuous process.

Wijeratne said that he has plans to make the safe house a vocational training center for these stranded women. “We are promoting the idea of introducing uniforms for housemaids working in Kuwait,” he said that such garments could be manufactured in the safe house, which would also provide an income to the stranded maids.