Programme to protect migrant workers

Sri Lankans who have gone abroad for employment were invited to lodge their complaint via the embassy of the country in which they work

The Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare yesterday launched a computerised programme to inquire into complaints lodged by Sri Lankan workers abroad.

Minister of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare, Dilan Perera, introducing the new initiative, said that the foreign employment agency that sent the employee abroad would be alerted in case of any complaints being received by the SLBFE so that they could get involved in the process of solving the issue directly.

Sri Lankans who have gone abroad for employment were invited to lodge their complaints via the embassy of the country in which they work to the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) and within 15 minutes an SMS alert would be sent through the computerised system to the relevant employment agency for a solution to be sought. Relatives of the employee could also lodge complaints about an issue the employee was facing aboard through the district offices of the SLBFE.

If the issue is not resolved by the employment agency within 48 hours of being informed of it, the SLBFE sends another reminder to the agency. After the second reminder, if the agency fails to take action to solve the issue, the SLBFE inquires into the complaint and the agency head would be summoned to court or their license would be temporarily suspended until the issue was resolved.

He also said that during the last 6 months of 2013 the SLBFE has received 4,617 complaints and they have currently resolved 4,488 of those complaints.