WSWS,  Sat Mar  3 20:23:44 EST 2007

    Tens of thousands of Sri Lankans are driven by financial need and poverty to become contract workers in the Middle East. Their conditions are appalling. Many are treated as slave labour and abused, mentally and physically. A number have died in unexplained circumstances. The Sri Lankan government, concerned above all to protect a lucrative source of foreign exchange, has taken no action to defend its citizens.

According to a report by the Information Department in Colombo, 64.5 percent of the 1.5 million Sri Lankans employed abroad are women. In 1986 the proportion was only about a half of it, at 33 percent. Most are employed as housemaids or are involved in other menial forms of work. The World Socialist Web Site recently interviewed one housemaid who described at length the exploitative conditions she was forced to endure.
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- The Academic

sorry Padma, you are among 20 million other Sri Lankan citizens with out a care taker.
at least your news now read by few thousands, but many like yours never had a chance.
at least you are still breathing, but for many not.
we should be proud with the government, and its 100s of ministers and their policies.
now MR support team have been armed with anti Mangala slogans and hope we will see that continue here too.

Abby wrote:

sorry Padma, you are among 20 million other Sri Lankan citizens with out a care taker

Padma most probably wouldn’t have left if there was no terrorist activity exacerbating the economic problems. Padma in many ways is better off than Lechami in Vanni having to protect their children from being used as cannon fodder as well as having to make ends meet. I am not sure why you are blaming Mahida or anyone else for that matter when you should really know who is mainly answerable to this sad state of affairs. Next time when they come knocking on your door to collect money for another 'Final War' let them know your thoughts. Perhaps you could even reach them over the phone in Vanni, or hold a demonstration as you usually do when the army goes on the offensive. Just a thought  


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“We are helping Tamilnadu to achieve self-rule” - V. Balakumaran, Advisor to Prabakaran, (Jan. 2006)

[quote="Abby"]
we should be proud with the government, and its 100s of ministers and their policies.
now MR support team have been armed with anti Mangala slogans and hope we will see that continue here too.
[/quote]

Just a question,

Would the case of padama's  and all kinds of sufferings be less prevlelant if Sri Lanka was not ridden with this menace  which most of us call terrorism? (ofcourse, the expatriates fuelling the problem will disagree with the term "terrorism" and call it freedom fighting)

systemx wrote:

Abby wrote:

sorry Padma, you are among 20 million other Sri Lankan citizens with out a care taker

Padma most probably wouldn’t have left if there was no terrorist activity exacerbating the economic problems. Padma in many ways is better off than Lechami in Vanni having to protect their children from being used as cannon fodder as well as having to make ends meet. I am not sure why you are blaming Mahida or anyone else for that matter when you should really know who is mainly answerable to this sad state of affairs. ......

it is not responsibility of MR, CBK, RW, Prema, JR to looks after their citizens.
thus it is not fault of them.
it is all fault of terrorists.
our leaders have no control. so they don't have any accountability.
so pack your bags leave SL and become citizens of the contries who look after their citizens.

The Saudis, and Arabs generally, are infamous for their attitude to all women.  Nevertheless, if Padma experienced all these events within Sri Lanka, we would not hear her story.  All the Padmas and Letchumis in SL and abroad deserve our sympathy.

I blame GOSL for this.  If there was no LTTE and Padma went to Saudi Arabia for higher wages her story would be no different.  Aren't there women from the Phillipines, India, etc in Saudi Arabia?  GOSL is simply exporting women because it needs the money.

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/070304/Columns/eco.html

Quote:

Opportunities and Challenges that pointed out that the only sector where poverty had not declined was the estate sector. In fact poverty has increased considerably on the estates from 21 per cent in 1990/91 to 30 per cent in 2002. The report says, “The story in the estate-homes for only 5 per cent of the country’s population – seems to be one of stagnation rather than a drastic fall in welfare.”

Apart from the fact that nearly a third of the population was in abject poverty, there were other characteristics on the estates that make their povery unacceptable.

Easily another VP can emerge from hill country.
then whose fault?

You cannot stop Padma from traveling overseas under any circumstances. What the govt can do is however, improve the economic prosperity so that Padma can make the same kind of money back home. With the LTTE menace this is much harder because the significant time and resources required to contain the problem. If there is anyone who can effectively stop the war if they wanted to is the Tamil LTTE bootlicker community. They will deliberately not get involved because they think the “Tamil cause” is weakened. What they forget of course is whether LTTE exists or not, the political solution has to be accepted by all. The use of LTTE as a tool to blackmail the rest of the community to force more power than they deserve is not going to work. They will wait and to do nothing while LTTE continues to destroy what is left of Sri Lanka. There is no question mistakes were made by all parties concerned. The question is what can be done at present to solve the problem. This Negombo chap always seem throw the discussion of course making useless points when LTTE or their . are shown in a bad light . Maybe he is one himself, there is no other way to explain his behavior.


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“We are helping Tamilnadu to achieve self-rule” - V. Balakumaran, Advisor to Prabakaran, (Jan. 2006)

your point was that MR & SL leaders are not repsonsible for the the fate SriLankans.

systemx wrote:

I am not sure why you are blaming Mahida or anyone else for that matter when you should really know who is mainly answerable to this sad state of affairs.

I pointed SL leaders are responsible..

I don't know why you are falling back to the typical last resort argument "if one against MR, JVP & war they are LTTE supporters".
if Sripathy opened can of worms proves to be true we would know, who are true LTTE moles.

Negombo wrote:

your point was that MR & SL leaders are not repsonsible for the the fate SriLankans.

systemx wrote:

I am not sure why you are blaming Mahida or anyone else for that matter when you should really know who is mainly answerable to this sad state of affairs.

I pointed SL leaders are responsible..

I operative word here is "mainly" which I have highlighted and you missed.

You just keep whining like a broken record player about the same crap and its getting boring. Presently, the MAIN obstacle to peace is LTTE and the bootlicker community. There is no point in keep going back to who is responsible since it is not going to help any one in any shape or form.

Also what kind of worms are you on about? Sripathi is a total loser who was court marshalled twice by the navy, once for harming civilians in Jaffna. You want to believe a word he says then go ahead.



Last edited by systemx on Sun Mar 04, 2007 12:23 pm; edited 1 time in total
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“We are helping Tamilnadu to achieve self-rule” - V. Balakumaran, Advisor to Prabakaran, (Jan. 2006)

This is modern day slavery.  I have seen Sri Lankan (Indian, Philippines, Malaysians) at airports in ME. I have seen in Kuwait airport Sri Lankan women in a room waiting to be picked up.

Since I can converse in Basa, I felt that Indonesian Women are being treated better as they are Muslims. As Padama's story says this is not peculiar for Sri Lanka, but for other countries such as India, Philippines as well.

The treatment of Housemaids differs from country to country.  Last October, I met a Tamil woman from Daraniyagala going Lanka from Lebanon at Abu Dhabi Airport.   She showed me the photos, which she took with her employer’s spouse.  She even kept a photo with the small baby girl she looked after. Few other Sinhala House maids told me that the workload was high but they were treated well in Kuwait and Lebanon.

The justice system in Saudi is horrible. For example, an Sri Lanka Diplomat who worked in the Sri Lankan Mission in Saudi told me that when you go to a court first thing the Judge ask is the Religion you believe.  If some one died compensations are high for a Muslim, then a Christian.  Hindus and Buddhists according to him get lowest compensation.

Veritas wrote:

I blame GOSL for this.  If there was no LTTE and Padma went to Saudi Arabia for higher wages her story would be no different.  Aren't there women from the Phillipines, India, etc in Saudi Arabia?  GOSL is simply exporting women because it needs the money.

Veritas

I disagree - the decision to go abroad is made by the individual., not the GOSL. The GOSL does not export people - however, it does facilitate things for people who do wish to go - as every other country that has a foreign-worker program does.
 
I do agree that the mechanisms for protecting such people are inadequate and that can certainly be laid at the foot of the GOSL. But I think it would be a hard slog for the GOSL to increase it's presence in a place such as the Middle East - given the closed nature of the countries and societies

Nevertheless, people travel to the Middle East because there is more oportunity for them than in SL - if they had the choice, I am sure they would all opt to travel to the US, UK or Australia instead of the KSA or Dubai.

The problem of maids is not exclusive to Saudi. After the first Gulf War there were so many cases of abuse of maids by Kuwaiti citizens that one country, I believe it was Philipines, banned the emigration of women to Kuwait. Maybe that was the result of the traumas of invasion and things are more peaceful now; I don't know. The mother of some good friends of mine in Lanka has worked as a domestic helper for some years now in Lebanon. The first year she was in Lebanon she was imprisoned in the house by an abusive employer, and it was only after many months she was able to escape. Her second employer apparently is reasonable, and she has been working there some years now. The wife of another friend of mine went off to Lebanon in summer. She did not reply for weeks and after some weeks I emailed the missing persons department of the SLBFE asking for details, as she had done the course with them and registered. I never got a reply to my email, but the Lebanese end of the SLBFE did repatriate her some weeks later, strengthening my suspicion that Lankan officials abroad work much harder than their bosses in Colombo. She has now gone to Dubai; let's hope everything is all right. The mother of another good friend of ours returned from Dubai in a coffin; the official story was that she had blown herself up in the kitchen.

The 'first world' is not much better in this respect. A family in the US was convicted recently of treating their Sri Lankan maid like a slave, and they were jailed. The couple were Sri Lankan immigrants. There was a similar case in the UK, where the maid was Sri Lankan and the family was Jordanian. There are plenty of cases on white Brits and Yanks treating their aupair like bonded labour.

The reason it happens is because it can. There is an assymetry of power. The maid is alone, in a foreign country where she does not speak the language, and is often in dire financial straits. The employer has all going for him/her, and there are few external constraints on his actions. It is pointless to suggest that the Lankan embassy should look after the maids; the numbers are too great, and in fact it does a fair job at present dealing with those who run away. Even if the embassy were better staffed it could do little; if you complain to the British embassy in Saudi about a labour matter they will give you the address of a lawyer, and no more. And this is a diplomatic representation that looks after its citizens very seriously (to the surprise of most of use who are used to the disdain and incompetence of British diplomatic outposts in most other countries). The Lankan embassy doesn't have a chance.

Little can be done. One thing the Lankan embassy should push for, preferably with the co-operation of other labour exporting countries, is for all third world workers to have a bank account by law, and this to be provided free of charge (the cost being born by charges on the richer accounts) instead of the 200SR or more (two to three weeks salary) that is charged at present, and for all salaries to be paid into the bank account by law. This would make it very clear to the authorities when salary is withheld, and ennable action to be taken more promptly. Equally the training sessions for maids that the SLFBF holds should also include setting up bank accounts in Lanka and explaining the international and domestic transfer system. Padma's case, where she was given her salary but lent two-thirds of it ($1,200) to her employer's mother never to get it returned is unusual, but it is very common for Lankan maids to return on vacation and find that the person they have been sending their wages to in Lanka (whether husband or mother or other family) has dissipated the wages, either in liquor, or in loans to poorer off family members or just in general expenses.

Incidentally, if any of the forum members are residents, or better resident citizens on the UK, there is one thing you can do to make the plight of Sri Lankan domestics better in your country of residence. The British government is on the point of repealing legislation it introduced in 1997 allowing domestic servants to change employer as long as they stayed in the same profession, and is in effect reintroducing indentured labour for domestic servants, since they will not be able to  leave an abusive employer without facing deportation. If you could write individual letters to your MP pointing out how nefarious and retrograde this will be it might have some effect.

The problem is a structural one...  It is not enough to use legislation as it is not effective.

At the core is the abject poverty in post-colonial states. Labour migration is only the recent phenomena of centuries of the effect of capitalism as practised by the powerful states: slavery, indentured labour and now migratory labour.

All the rich countries rely on such movements, and while they can stop it, they have no incentive to do so. Nor do poor states' governments desire such an outcome, even in condition of war (Lebanon 2006, where there were 80K Sri Lankans). Rich countries would have their factories close down if not for migration. Poor countries would collapse without the remittances of this slave labour.

What is the solution? The only honest one is to begin with the source of the problem: the interests of rich countries and their desire to exploit vulnerable labour. I see no movement in this direction, except for band-aid measures such as the British one. In true Burkean tradition, the Brits want to keep the current system of exploitation. To solve the problem, there must be no incentive for people to work in such terrible situations, and that means solving poverty, which the rich countries are not seriously interested in, even though they are ready and willing to pump trillions into war...

Go get serious here... band aid solutions only further the power of the rich countries, and that is their true intent.


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Do not start a war, unless it is already won...

Veritas wrote:

The Saudis, and Arabs generally, are infamous for their attitude to all women.

Watch yourself, my friend.  You might offend some people here who might declare that the Saudis treat women much better than Sri Lankans do.


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If the only tool you have is a hammer, you will see every problem as a nail.- Abraham Maslow