Government agrees to repatriate Lankan overstayers without penalties

The Saudi government has agreed to repatriate a group of illegal Sri Lankans, who had been residing under the Sharafiya Bridge in Jeddah, Atham Bawa Uthuma Lebbe, the Sri Lankan consul general, told Arab News yesterday.
Lebbe stated that the agreement was reached on Tuesday following a meeting with Ahmad Mohammad Tayeb, the director general at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Around 500 Sri Lankan workers have sought refuge at the consulate, requesting the mission to cover their travel expenses back home. 
The consul general explained that the Sri Lankan labors could have faced three-month prison sentences and fines worth SR 10,000 for overstaying their visa duration. However, the Saudi government has waived the penalties and agreed to facilitate their repatriation. 
“We appreciate this gracious offer from the Saudi government,” the consul general said. “This news will be warmly welcomed by the stranded countrymen.”
He pointed out that the cost of the return ticket to Colombo will be borne by the overstaying workers, while the outpass, authorizing their return back home, will be issued by the mission.
The diplomat explained that those who have criminal records will not be included in the Saudi government’s pardon. “They will have to seek recourse through the Kingdom’s legal system,” he said. 
The official revealed that 75 percent of the stranded visa overstayers are not from Jeddah. 
“Most of the employees seeking refuge at the consulate are runaways from Riyadh, who have found a safe haven in the Western Province,” he said.
Arab News learned that most of the Sri Lankan overstayers earn a living working part-time jobs and are employed under different sponsors. Furthermore, most of them do not have a residency permit and do not possess passports. 
The consul general said that the mission is striving to help the stranded islanders return home. However it is under increasing pressure, especially due to the illegal workers’ demands for free meals and airline tickets back home. 
There are around 550,000 Sri Lankans spread throughout the Kingdom and nearly 200,000 of them live in the Western Province, which comes under the purview of the Sri Lankan consulate. 
Recently, Dilan Perera, the Sri Lankan minister for foreign employment promotion and welfare, who was on a visit to Dammam previously, told Arab News that his ministry is striving to ensure skilled workers enter the Kingdom’s labor market as well as neighboring countries. 
“A gradual shift from unskilled to skilled workers is set to occur,” the minister asserted. 
Perera pointed out that the ministry is facing challenges ensuring the security, rights and welfare of domestic workers deployed overseas. 
“Domestic workers who seek foreign employment face problems such as harassment and delayed wages in the host countries, while their families back home face serious socio-economic problems,” he said.
The minister said that the Sri Lankan government is unofficially discouraging citizens from accepting jobs abroad as housemaids, as the country gradually aims to steer toward training its citizens for skilled and professional positions. 
“We want to offer skilled and qualified manpower to the Kingdom and other regional job markets,” he said. 
He said that the Sri Lankan Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) would assist companies in the host countries to train the human resource cadres according to their needs. “We have well established training centers to provide the prospective foreign workers with the required skills,” Perera said. “An innovative mechanism is currently being developed in Sri Lanka to implement job-specific, country-specific and company-specific training programs for citizens seeking foreign job opportunities.”
The minister reaffirmed his government’s resolve to improve the welfare of migrant manpower by introducing scholarships to the children of Gulf returnees among other incentives. He said that work-related complaints such as employee or agent harassment, physical abuse, health challenges and issues of absconding maids, have significantly decreased at the Sri Lankan missions across the Kingdom.