Reduction in SL women going to the Middle East

Despite a sharp drop in Sri Lankan women seeking employment in the Middle East last year, the foreign remittances from expatriate Sri Lankans had recorded a steady increase, Foreign Employment and Welfare Minister Dilan Perera said.

He said the Bureau of Foreign Employment of Sri Lanka (BFESL) has discouraged female workers, young mothers in particular from going abroad under the unskilled category such as domestic aides leaving behind their young children under the care of a father or relatives.

“We can’t ban Sri Lankan women from going abroad as domestic aides but we have done the next best thing which is to prevent married women from leaving behind their underage offspring alone and destitute. This has been a major family and social issue. Our studies have proved that more harm than good has been done to children whose mothers were abroad. Therefore, the BFESL has made it manda- tory for a mother with young children to submit a Family Background Report before leaving the country,” the minister said

Quoting the 2013 Central Bank Report, he said the total departures for foreign employment increased by 3.8% from 282,447 in 2012 to 293,105 in 2013 despite the significant decline in departures under the housemaid category by 18.6% because of restrictions imposed by the authorities.

“The increase in departures can be attributed to the noticeable growth in migration for foreign employment in the professional, middle level, clerical, skilled and unskilled categories. Despite the increase in the departures of higher skilled categories, their share in total migration was lower than those under the semi-skilled, unskilled and housemaid categories,” he said.

The minister said under the housemaid category, both the number and the share in total migration declined significantly last year.