Lankan foreign domestics:

Plans to increase minimum employment age

Rasika SOMARATHNA

Authorities are contemplating increasing the minimum age of Sri Lankan women seeking overseas employment as domestic workers from 21 to 30, within the next three years.

This is an attempt to further restrict women from migrating abroad for employment as domestic hands, according to Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare Minister Dilan Perera.

In January this year the Cabinet endorsed a proposal by the minister to raise the minimum age limit for migrant domestic workers from 18 to 21 years. According to authorities this could be the first step in bringing about a complete freeze on Lankan women going abroad for employment as domestic aides.

The minister's comment on increasing the age limit comes in the wake of a spate of incidents where Sri Lankan female migrant domestic aides were subjected to various forms of abuse and exploitation by their overseas employers.

The most recent of these cases include the case of a woman allegedly being forced to swallow nails in Lebanon, and another resident of Vakarai returning to the country last week with injuries received due to torture by her employer in Saudi Arabia.

However at the start it was males who dominated the field. In 1986, among all departures for employment abroad, males enjoyed a 76 percent share.

However with the advent of Middle Eastern markets which employed a large number of females as domestic aides the trend changed. By 1998 females accounted for 55 percent of migrant workers with over 90 percent of them being housemaids. By 1997 it further increased to 75 percent. However due to efforts by authorities since then females migrating for employment has dropped significantly. By 2008 it dropped to 48 percent and of late it has further gone down to 44 percent.