Bitter homecoming
Sri Lanka’s migrant worker numbers are more manageable than nations like India and Phillippines and those who wanted to return could have been repatriated faster. Namini Wijedasa reports
“Please highlight the plight of our Middle East workers in your writing,” said a message via Facebook. “Thousands are on the street, awaiting return.”
This was on April 26, more than a month ago. The first repatriation from that region took place on May 7. The flight from Dubai had a mix of 197 released prisoners, students, visit- visa holders who had lost jobs and accommodation, medical emergencies, pregnant women and a single safe house occupant.
It was another 13 days before the next repatriation from West Asia. Two Kuwait Airways flights with 466 passengers landed on May 19. They were mostly Sri Lankan workers who had lost employment status and applied for a Kuwait Government amnesty allowing them to leave without penalty and to return to work in future. The rest were deportees.
Passage was paid for by Kuwait. As in other Gulf countries, foreign workers are governed by the “kafala” system which ties their legal status to a specific sponsoring employer. The law precludes them from being hired by another employer for the duration of the contract.
Countless Sri Lankans across West Asia have violated these terms and are now deemed out-ofstatus. Some have changed employers while others held lucrative part-time gigs, often in multiple places. The pandemic rendered them jobless.
These “illegal workers” are scattered around the region. The problem is not Sri Lanka’s alone. But where other nations-- like India and the Philippines-- have hundreds of thousands to contend with, Sri Lanka’s numbers are more manageable. Those who wanted to return could have been repatriated faster.
What wasn’t made public was that even those two planeloads were allowed back after the Kuwait Government lost its patience over Colombo’s failure to grant approval for the transfer. Sri Lankans had between April 20 and 25 to apply for the amnesty and 385 registered. They were sent into camps where, presumably, conditions were not similar to quarantine centres.
On April 25, Minister of Foreign Relations Dinesh Gunawardena met the Kuwaiti Ambassador and sought an extension of the amnesty. It was granted. By mid- May, however, the Kuwaitis were livid. A diplomatic row loomed.
Sri Lanka’s Ambassador was summoned to the Foreign
Ministry in Kuwait City and given a talking to. The Prime Ministers of the two countries also had a conversation. And the Kuwaiti Foreign Minister telephoned Minister Gunawardena on May 18 and expressed his strong displeasure at Colombo’s apparent disregard for the terms of the amnesty.
They agreed that those in camps, including deportees, would be permitted to return immediately. The flights left Kuwait the very next day. “Getting these people back was not a choice,” an official source said, on condition of anonymity. “It was a compulsion.”
Kuwait’s position was that people must be accounted for. Illegal workers performed odd jobs that required frequent coming-and-going. They posed a risk. Amnesties are offered from time to time and hadn’t caused controversy before.
The highest number of Sri Lankans to categorized as “vulnerable” by the Ministry of Foreign Relations live in Kuwait. The number that has requested repatriation is 16,300. The Kuwaitis say close to 18,000 are out-of-status workers. A total of around 100,000 Sri Lankans are employed there but more accurate statistics are required.
Sri Lanka’s public position was that quarantine and health facilities could be overburdened if it started accommodating the large numbers from West Asia that wished to come home. And there was some concern in the health sector that hospitals, which had coped well thus far, would be overwhelmed.
The Director General of Health Services wanted those in line for repatriation to be tested before department. But Gulf countries either have rules precluding tests without symptoms or charge exorbitantly. Any such screening has, therefore, to be done on arrival in Sri Lanka.
Privately, it was also admitted that “remittances mattered”. Even the money earned by “illegal” workers was, after all, money. Not only were the Kuwait returnees brought through external pressure, a section of the group from Dubai ( the released prisoners) were also forced by that Government to be taken out.
The lag may have caused the highly virulent COVID- 19 to spread more widely among camp inmates in Kuwait. Of the 466 that arrived, 321 had tested positive at the time of going to press. That is nearly 70 percent of returnees.
Some officials admit that migrant workers are just not on the administration’s radar, even when directly confronted by their suffering.
“Everyone hears about the university students,” one said, wishing to remain unnamed. “Or about the man who went abroad to visit his son and is being ill-treated by the daughter-in-law. Or the person who traveled for
medical treatment and now wants to get back. Has anybody told you about the housemaid on the road? It’s only now that you are seeing it on social media.”
The Government, he said, is missing a sensitivity chip. The language reflects this. When Mahindananda Aluthgamage claimed that the Kuwait Government had selected those
with COVID-19 and sent them back-and that “they have struck us with a bomb”--it was widely picked up and criticized by workers.
The wide perception is that Sri Lanka prioritized the return of influential citizens over the labour in West Asia. This is despite early recommendations from both the Ministry of Foreign Relations and the
Ministry of Labour that workers be brought back on a staggered basis, starting from the most vulnerable (economically as well as to the disease).
The Ministry of Foreign Relations submitted three Cabinet papers on the matter and the Ministry of Labour, one. The fear was that, if the Government did not move faster on the susceptible groups, there will be bigger problems to deal with.
That time may have come, said an employment agent: “It’s a real mess, now.”
The Director General of Health Services wanted those in line for repatriation to be tested before department. But Gulf countries either have rules precluding tests without symptoms or charge exorbitantly. Any such screening has, therefore, to be done on arrival in Sri Lanka.
Everyone hears about the university students,” one said, wishing to remain unnamed. “Or about the man who went abroad to visit his son and is being ill-treated by the daughter-in-law. Or the person who traveled for medical treatment and now wants to get back. Has anybody told you about the housemaid on the road? It’s only now that you are seeing it on social media.”