May she be the last...

Nipuni WIMALAPALA

Views of MCSL

The Muslim Council of Sri Lanka (MCSL) expresses its great sadness on the execution of Rizana, rejecting all appeals for clemency.

The MCSL says, “ the incident is a direct result of the negligence of the parents who entrusted their infant to the care of underage Rizana.

We express shock and dismay at the failure on the part of the infant's parents to take responsibility for their action and pardon Rizana- an option that was available to them under Islamic Law and which option of pardoning is strongly encouraged in the Quran. while the Holy Quran provides for the implementation of the death penalty for murder,treating murder as an offence against the entire community, the circumstances of the infant's death clearly do not amount to murder under well known principles of Islamic Shariah.

In any event it is the Shariah that provides for pardoning even the guilty at the instance of the victim's kin and states that forgiveness is better than punishment. The Holy Quran furthermore urges in Verse 15:85 to overlook (any human faults) with gracious forgiveness.

Thus we see the implementation of the death penalty as going against the spirit and the letter of Islamic Law”.

Rizana Nafeek left an awfully shocking memory in every Sri Lankan heart. She suffered her whole life in different ways. She flied to Saudi Arabia, the oil rich desert to find her own oasis to lead a fruitful life. Unfortunately her story ended up in a tragic way where her still body was buried in the desert with no one there to honor or weep.

What did she do to be punished like that? She was just a 17 year old teen when she went there to work as a domestic maid. Though she undertook the responsibility of her family on her shoulders and started taking care of a baby, she herself was supposed to be in her parents’ warmth in reality. The society she was brought up, poverty she always went through, money minded foreign employment agencies and the misconducts of the authorities only put her in trouble.

Her execution was highly condemned by the President Mahinda Rajapaksa, all the Government bodies and the majority of the international community though nobody could stop it. The reason is the Sharia law implemented in Saudi Arabia is rather powerful than the voices of all those who appealed for Rizana.

Government's efforts

Commenting on the issue, The Minister of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare, Dilan Perera said that the Sri Lankan government did its best to save her life, still they could not. The President Mahinda Rajapaksa has appealed twice from the King of Saudi Arabia to release her from death sentence and under the advisory of the President, 4 diplomatic teams were sent to Saudi Arabia to save Rizana's life.

Apart from that the European Union, many foreign Embassies and High Commissions, Human Rights organizations have put effort to stop this. But finally nothing worked out.

“We are planning to build a house for Rizana's family and will provide with Rs. 1 million monetary aids. Apart from that a capable member of her family would be given an employment in the Trincomalee office of SLBFE which will help uplift their living conditions”, he said.

Minister Perera expressed that a major implement is to be done soon to minimize issues faced by women. It is the amendment of age limit of women migrants. It is to be increased from 21 to 25 very soon. It would help detect underage migrations and women who are above 25 are rather capable of working and undertaking responsibilities since they are little matured. And the other thing is, it is expected to implement some specific conditions when taking employment bonds based on Sri Lankan laws while respecting their Sharia law.

Future steps

Rizana is no more. What we can do in her memory is to set up a proper procedure to conduct the selection processes, detect passports and birth certificates, make people aware of the working environment and post issues they face when in the particular country to prevent such things in the future.

Here the question arises, why cannot the government stop sending women for domestic work? Isn't it possible for them to send women for semi skilled or skilled work other than being domestic work category?

Chairman of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), Amal Senalankadhikara expressed his views as follows. “We highly denounce the execution which was totally unfair since she was an underage girl when the incident happened.

We always work hard to stop these kinds of issues though still there are certain misconducts which lead to serious issues. Now we are very strict on the procedures and willing to set up proper strategies to avoid issues of this nature.

Senalankadhikara said that “It is difficult to stop women migration at once. But we have been discouraging women migration last few years because of these continuous issues.

As a result, in the last two years the majority of migrants are men (See Table). Another area we expect to develop is, the pre departure training given to women.

We hope to develop the remaining training to make sure that women are capable of handling things and we specially pay attention to develop language skills of women. They should be at least fairly good in the language of the particular destination where they fly.

According to him, another important area is the assistance given to migrants by the High Commission of Sri Lanka in those countries and the branch of the Sri Lankan Foreign Employment Bureau to be more developed.

Already the migrants are fully accessible to those Sri Lankan agencies whenever they are in trouble though sometimes they fail to seek support due to many issues. There are First Secretary, Second Secretary and Labour Welfare Officer to help them out.

As he said, in Saudi Arabia, since it is a huge country in size, sometimes migrants face difficulties in contacting the respective agencies due to the huge distance.

The best example is Rizana was kept in a prison which is 400 Km away from the city. As a solution to this, the Bureau is taking initiatives to establish sub offices of Sri Lankan agencies in those areas and to keep an officer to monitor and assist the issues of workers.

Be truthful

Senalankadhikara stressed that the screening procedure of applicants starts with the Grama Sewaka who holds a huge responsibility.

He should take the responsibility of certifying the age, family and personal information of every applicant. If he does not carry his work properly, it could lead to serious issues. To avoid this, the authority of certifying those information is going to be given to the Divisional Secretaries.

Women those who have children under age 5 are not allowed to migrate and if there are little daughters or teenage girls, there should be a close, trustful relation to take care of them.

Currently the SLBFE tries to minimize sending women as house maids and introducing other areas. They are supposed to get through NEQ level 3 examination for that.

A better world for women

Analyzing the issue in a more sociological way, Child Development and Women's Affairs Minister Tissa Karaliyadda stressed that this is an issue which directly affects women and their rights. According to him, if laws and regulations work out properly, it is possible to avoid these issues and basically the parents hold a big responsibility in taking care of their girl children.

If parents encourage daughters to go abroad, it is difficult to protect them and parents should understand that earning money in Middle East countries is quite hard. Especially when they are sent via private agencies, there is no proper safety measure and they do not take responsibility finally.

“It is thousand times better to do something within Sri Lanka even if it provides a little income, because the safety is there. Mothers should think of their children’s safety first than economic benefits. Women who migrate should be matured and capable in work. I suggest that women who have children below 18 should not migrate.

They should take care of the children. And I believe that the best thing is to encourage men to migrate than women. In the last two years it was successful and the SLBFE is further carrying it on. And most importantly the agencies which send women should be properly monitored to avoid misconducts”, he noted.

Considering all these facts, parents should take care of daughters and should give the maximum support to the authorities to work out the remaining laws properly.

On the other hand, the agencies, respective authorities and all the related bodies should do their best to protect our girls and women since a human life is more valuable than earning money.

Female migrants are an economic asset to the country's development so we should give them the best conditions in return.