|
THOUSANDS of people are signing the petitions in support of Rizana
Rafeek and horrified at the stories of the suffering of Sri Lankan
housemaids accepting work in Middle East countries that have not
ratified the UN Convention on Human Rights of migrant workers. Please
visit the website www.unhchr.ch for further details of the migrant
worker rights denied to our housemaids.
The Foreign Employment Bureau (FEB) has taken a progressive step in
insisting on the registration of all migrant workers with FEB, that has
resulted in a significant drop in the number of complaints. Reluctance
to take further steps appears to be based on the following
misconceptions.
Our representative in Kuwait has rightly recommended an increase in
the minimum wage of a housemaid from US $ 150 to 250.
In contrast, a study of the foreign exchange earned by a worker in a
medium sized group of garment factories was found to be US $ 470, while
the average earnings inclusive of all incentive payments, EPF and ETF
were found to be US $ 190.
The basic wage accounts for approximately 50 per cent of the total
earnings. This shows that the foreign exchange earnings of a worker in a
garment factory is two to three times the foreign exchange earned by a
housemaid, often working as a slave in the Middle East.
There are vacancies for machine operators and trainees in practically
every garment factory, spread throughout the country.
The CEO of Brandix Group Ashroff Omar in his address at the
Presidential Export Awards ceremony welcomed the availability of the
pool of labour created by the clearing of the East, to feed the shortage
of labour in the garment industry.
If the shortage of machine operators is a critical factor in the size
of order accepted by a factory, we are losing much more foreign exchange
by allowing this scarce resource to work in countries that do not abide
by the UN Convention on Human Rights of migrant workers.
The labour shortage in the garment industry, as well as many other
industries makes nonsense of the claim that the poor girls are forced to
seek foreign employment because of the slow creation of employment
opportunities in Sri Lanka.
The Governments of labour sending countries have no bargaining power.
I had the pleasure of representing the Federation of Chambers of
Commerce and Industry in the National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC)
when Mahinda Samarasinghe was the Minister of Employment and Labour.
With his experience in working at the ILO office, he won the admiration
of the Unions and the employer organisations, with his skilful manner of
conducting the meetings.
Today he is the Minister in charge of Human Rights. The Minister of
Foreign Employment Keheliya Rambukwella has also displayed his
communication skills as a Government spokesman on security issues.
They are quite capable of harnessing the resources of ILO, IOM and
Human Rights organisations, to collaborate with other countries that
allow women to accept work as housemaids and pressurise all countries to
become signatories to the UN and other International conventions
guaranteeing the rights of migrant workers and in particular the
defenceless housemaids.
The freedom of housemaids to quit is limited by the absence of
passports.
It is a common practice in the Middle East for employers to take over
the passports of housemaids, to minimise their mobility. In the year
2001, the privatisation of National Insurance Corporation provided the
Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC) an opportunity to bid for the
insurance of foreign employment seekers through FEB.
SLIC with the assistance of Sri Lankan Airlines and the Department of
Immigration and Emigration offered an enhanced insurance cover that
included the scanning and retention of the passport details of the
insured workers, to permit the Sri Lankan Airlines officials to issue
air tickets under the insurance cover to all housemaids in distress
immediately.
Unfortunately, the Foreign Employment Bureau rejected the enhanced
offer because of time constraints and the repatriation of housemaids in
distress free of charge by the Government.
The Foreign Employment Bureau should review this passport scanning
procedure to help the foreign embassy officials to offer new passports
to housemaids in distress who flock to our embassies in Middle East
countries. This will minimise the exploitation of helpless housemaids by
some employers in these countries.
I hope this letter will receive the sympathetic consideration of the
respective Ministers and President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has been a
Minister of Labour.
LAL DE MEL
- Past President FCCISL, Past Chairman SLIC
Recently I went to open a bank account. At the bank, there was a form
to be filled with so many details, such as revenue, value of property,
accounts in other banks, names of wife and children, income tax file
number and so on. I do not know why they collect these unnecessary
details in the name of familiarising the customer.
Are they directed by the Central Bank or the Income Tax Department to
spying the customers? Although we don’t expect Swiss Bank secrecy, there
should be certain confidentiality, which the customer can rely on the
bank and rest at home after opening a bank account.
SEKARA
- Kotte
|
