RIYADH, 12 April 2006 — Heads of Sri Lankan missions in the Middle East and Asia will meet in Dubai on April 16 and 17 to discuss labor problems in their respective countries of assignment. Athauda Seneviratne, minister of labor relations and foreign employment, will chair this meeting that will be attended by ambassadors from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Maldives, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore. The focus of the program will be on the welfare of 1.2 million Sri Lankan workers in these countries. The work force comprises white-collar workers, professionals, skilled workers, domestic aides and female factory workers
“This is an important platform where the missions can explain their experience in labor problems and put forward their suggestions to the policy makers back home,” Mohamed Nabavi Junaid, Sri Lankan ambassador in Abu Dhabi, told Arab News. Money sent home by Sri Lankan overseas workers is the island’s second-largest foreign-exchange earner after export of garments.
The conference will also be attended by Jagath Wellawatte, chairman of Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), its senior officials and officers from the consular division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombo. SLBFE looks after the workers who have registered themselves with it. A meeting of the labor welfare officers of the participating missions will precede the meeting of the ambassadors.
