Migrant worker repatriation dilemma

The Government has run into some turbulence over the way it has handled the marooned Sri Lankan migrant workers, especially those in the Gulf countries. The sheer logistical nightmare of bringing back tens of thousands of those working abroad would have been mind-boggling given the limited resources at the Government’s command. Additionally, it faced criticism for allowing those from Italy to return in the early days of the pandemic’s spread and letting them loose because they kept the country open purely to accommodate nominations for a Parliamentary election.

With airports and borders fast closing down around mid-March, and airlines being grounded, these workers grounded in West Asia seemed a forgotten lot. The Ministries of Foreign Relations and of Labour seem to have been sidelined by a different group at a different level which began to prioritise differently.

The Government seems to have not wanted the Gulf workers to return in haste. It was pointed out that a) there were no quarantine facilities readily available to lodge them for 14 days; b) that those workers may not get their jobs back in the likelihood of a recession in West Asia; and c) and finding jobs locally would be no easy task considering the recession locally.

These workers have been wanting to return since March but the Government is seen as being of the view that the country as a whole was going to be the loser in lost remittances if they returned.

Such foreign remittances have long been what has helped the Sri Lankan economy survive -- for the country to not only pay its oil and import bills but even for MPs to buy their duty free cars so these can be flogged in the open market. The point is, whether the ultimate choice was with the Sri Lankan citizen wanting to return home, or the Government.

These workers have been huddled in transit camps in some of those countries and contracted the virus in the meantime. Now, two plane loads arrived in Sri Lanka last week carrying the virus with them. Even the economically developed countries have had similar issues of getting their citizens studying, working or holidaying, back home. They have dropped the ball in that field. It must also embarrass them that those workers from the poorer developing world feel safer at home than remaining in those developed countries.

Countries like India have problems of huge magnitude, particularly with domestic migrant workers. Scenes of their working population travelling through the sub-continent brought eerie reminders of the 1947 Partition. This is apart from their problem of getting overseas workers back home. There are many benefits, after all, in being a small island-nation with a manageable population and no porous borders.

We are told that Sri Lankan diplomatic missions in several countries had to plead with Colombo to get these Sri Lankan workers repatriated. It may be easier said than done, but there was also some hesitation shown in bringing these marooned workers because these folks were good “milch cows” for the economy as long as they were there. That has always been the case with almost a million Sri Lankan workers abroad.