JEDDAH: Sri Lanka is planning to trim the number of maids employed in the Middle East, a labor official has reportedly said.
Kingsley Ranawaka, chairman of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), was recently quoted by an international media source as saying that Lankan labor officials have decided to curb the number of housekeepers due to the number of complaints of ill-treatment received from Lankan maids in the region.
The bureau said that in the first half of this year, it received a total of 3,400 complaints, including 577 cases of breach of contract and 479 cases of sexual abuse and other forms of physical violence, as well as complaints of unpaid or underpaid salaries.
Saudi Arabia in particular has been a main market for Sri Lankan workers. For years as many as 500,000 maids work in the Kingdom at any time, according to data published by the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh.
However, last year the US-based Human Rights Watch rebuked Arab governments for not doing enough to eradicate the abuses against Sri Lankan domestic workers in the region. Commenting on problems Lankan employees are facing and the SLBFE’s decision to make a reduction, Ambassador A.A.M. Marleen told Arab News he hasn’t received any details regarding when or how the new plan will be implemented. The ambassador said it was a beneficial decision for their workers who often go into debt to pay the fees involved in going abroad to work only to find their situations worsened by working in abusive environments.
When asked what effect he thinks the reduction will have on Saudi sponsors due to the low availability of Sri Lankan maids on the employment market, the ambassador replied that because nearly 80 percent of Saudis earn monthly paychecks of SR5,000 or less he believes demand for Lankan maids will increase. This, he says, will allow only upper class and upper middle class families to afford maids, making way for better treatment and a more reasonable salaries and standards of living.
“We have reports at our embassy that some Lankan maids aren’t being paid their salaries or given proper food or accommodation and I hope this new decision will remedy the problem,” he said.
But what about the financial backlash to Sri Lanka, which relies heavily on worker remittances as the lifeblood of their economy?
Over the last five years foreign remittances in Sri Lanka doubled to SR9.3 million ($2.5 million), higher than any of its major exports, such as textiles and tea. Won’t the decrease in maids to the Middle East hurt the Lankan economy?
Not according to Ranawaka, who said that the SLBFE wants to discourage women migrant workers and instead send more men to work abroad. He said the Lankan government would also like to divest more of its workers from the Middle East region.
“Now we want to deviate workers from the Middle East to other markets, like the European Union, Canada, Australia, South Korea and Japan,” he said.
Over the years, foreign remittances have been thought to originate from only Middle East countries, but this misconception has been proved to be an exaggeration. Last year 58 percent of Lankan remittances came from Middle Eastern countries but not solely from domestic workers. Bankers, academics and other professionals were also contributors.
On the other hand, remittances have also been found to be coming from other sources besides the Middle East, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and Hong Kong, which combined made up 8.4 percent of the total remittances for 2007.
Another 25 percent of remittances were contributed from the European Union and other European countries, while North America accounted for 4.2 percent of remittances and Australia pulling in 1.3 percent.
“Sri Lanka can always find jobs abroad for its domestic workers, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere. The important point of the reduction in Lankan maids is that the ill-treatment must stop,” said Ambassador Marleen.
