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| Monday, 19 January 2004 |
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by Mohammed Rasooldeen in Riyadh On an initiative from the Kingdom, Sri Lanka is planning to sign a Unified Contract with Saudi Arabia to look after the interests of the island's domestic aides and their respective employers, the country's ambassador, Ibrahim Sahib Ansr told Daily News. The envoy was speaking after inaugurating the Charity Bazaar in aid of the Sri Lankan Expatriates Society (SLES) held at the embassy premises on Thursday. The society which functions under the aegis of the Riyadh mission. More than 1,000 families visited the fair featuring a wide range of Sri Lankan products. There were 48 stalls serving Sri Lankan, Indian and Pakistani dishes. The Seva Vanitha Unit of the Sri Lankan embassy, headed by the wife of the ambassador, Nissa Ansar, displayed a wide range of Sri Lankan products. The fair netted around Rs. 500,000 in sales. Part of the amount was diverted to an orphanage through the Seva Vanitha Unit at the Foreign Ministry in Colombo. The ambassador said that the proposed Unified Contract between the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) and Saudi Arabian National Recruiting Committee (SANRCOM), would solve several problems of the employer and the domestic aides, such as housemaids, house-boys and house drivers. Eighty percent of the 350,000 Sri Lankan population in the Kingdom are domestic aides. Of the total Sri Lankan expatriates population, some 150,000 come from the Central Province. The common problems facing the housemaids is the delayed payment of salaries. He said the employers want to retain the wages for the first three months in case of complaint against the worker. The proposed agreement will solve this type of problem where the employers will be required to pay the worker irrespective of the probation period. Ansar said that his mission gets about 150 runaway housemaids a month from the capital. The mission is kept open and special emergency telephone lines are available for all the workers to contact the embassy during an emergency. Speaking about the SLES, the envoy said that the organisation has done yeoman services to both Sri Lankans in the Kingdom and in Sri Lanka. He also commended the efforts of Sri Lankan students who were instrumental in collecting Rs. 25,000 from the sales of handicraft items produced by them. The President of the SLES, S. K. Subramaniam, said that the entire proceeds of the fair will be spent on its projects such as the society's Free Medical Clinic, financial assistance for distressed Sri Lankans and for the purchase of medical equipment for deserving hospitals in Sri Lanka. Last October, the SLES had also built 100 houses for the recent flood victims in Sri Lanka and donated medical equipment to the Jaffna Hospital in the north of the island. |
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