Sri Lanka to set blacklist of workers

Sri Lanka is considering blacklisting migrant workers who have been convicted of crimes in their host countries, according to Amal Senadhilankara, chairman Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) in Colombo.
“We are planning to implement this blacklisting scheme in the interest of the foreign employers who spend nearly SR 20,000 to recruit a domestic aide from the island,” Senadhilankara told Arab News. He added that the new rule would apply mostly to migrant workers who are employed as domestic workers in the Middle East.
He noted that more than $ 4,000 are paid to employment agencies and their sub-agents in Sri Lanka for each of the domestic workers but the employees regularly return home, causing losses to the people who hired them.
"Most of the workers sent back have been guilty of overstaying their visas, working in other places, escaping from households, robbery and other minor crimes," he said. He noted that blacklisting would reduce the number of such incidents.
There are currently 1.5 million migrant workers from Sri Lanka, mostly in the Middle East with around 500,000 employed in Saudi Arabia. Last year, the island's foreign workers remitted SR 5.1 billion.
The chairman said the blacklisting process, which is expected to start in September, would cover Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and other countries in the region.
Senadhilankara said that migrant workers, who return to Sri Lanka with criminal records will be fingerprinted both at the SLBFE office in Colombo as well as at the respective Lankan missions in the host countries.
The Sri Lankan missions in Riyadh and Jeddah get an average of 12 runaway housemaids a day. “The percentage is minimal compared to the island's housemaid population in the Kingdom,” a senior official from the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh told Arab News.
The SriLankan airlines welcomed the proposed move. An official from the airline said that during the last three months, the airline carried three such passengers, who were refused entry at the Kingdom's airport because of their earlier criminal records. “These workers had traveled on different passports but they were caught while being fingerprinted by the Saudi immigration authorities,” he noted.
Another step taken to reduce complaints is the blacklisting of abusive employers, and job recruitment agencies that are associated with a high number of complaints.
When agencies apply to the SLFBE to renew their permits, the SLFBE reviews the employment agency’s performance and looks into how many complaints the agency receives each year. It also examines how agencies respond to the complaints. The permits are withheld until the agency resolves all of its complaints, he added.
Last month, 15 Saudi sponsors filed cases against Sri Lankan housemaids who had run away from their homes in the Eastern Province. The group of Sri Lankan housemaids are currently detained at the 91 camps in Dammam pending legal action.
According to the case, the sponsors claimed they spent around SR 15,000 to SR 20,000 each to recruit a maid from Colombo.