No ruling parties in Sri Lanka’s political history have honoured its unsung migrant heroes on this special day who boost the country’s economy through foreign remittances
The President is familiar with Sri Lanka’s migration discourse when the Ethera Api organisation which represents overseas Sri Lankan workers was formed by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party. The organisation played a significant role in bringing the current National Political Power (NPP) Government into power.
Promoting migrant workers to its top destinations is taking place at a normal pace, but destination governments addressing the impact of demography imbalance and economy diversification is at fast pace. Yet, the NPP Government could come under public scrutiny for failing from its commitments to improve migration governance. Therefore, it is crucial that the newly elected Government act immediately to minimise the country’s unimproved legislations and weakened labour migration policies. By underling the potential risks, the newly elected Government taking the following points into consideration would attribute to strengthening the country’s labour migration beyond traditional migration corridors.
Managing migration governance
For decades, Sri Lanka’s labour migration has been managed by ruling parties for the purpose of boosting the country’s economy and promoting overseas employment. Likewise, the NPP Government also set out activities pertaining to migrant workers and diaspora in the election manifesto. Yet, the pace of unfolding proposed activities seems to be a little lethargic and ambiguous. Therefore, such notion raises concern on whether the NPP Government is equipped enough to mitigate the consequences of global migration issues with existing legislation and national policies.
One can argue that Sri Lanka’s labour migration is overseen by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) who is also managing two other major portfolios and requires adequate time to streamline migration governance. In fact, Sri Lanka’s labour migration legislation and national migration policies was developed for the purpose of gulf’s booming oil industry. While Sri Lanka’s top destination countries are improving their policies to diversify their economy, the NPP Government is unfolding measures to minimise such gaps and therefore equipping its workforce to meeting the labour demands to the non-oil and intelligent economies is the need of the hour.
Need for due diligence framework
The UNP Government enacted a law to establish the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau (SLBFE) in the year 1985. Subsequent to the 2004 amendment, no laws were passed by Parliament so far. However, ruling Governments have claimed that their close association with the ILO have resulted in development of national frameworks, which are non-bindings. However, the absence of due diligence policies against licenced agencies have resulted in unethical recruitment. Due to lack of transparency and accountability, migrant workers became vulnerable at the workplace to demand minimum wages due to lack of minimum wage policies in the destination countries. On top of it, ruling parties have failed to establish checks and balances against SLBFE’s bureaucracy and Sri Lankan diplomatic missions overseas.
Hold global supply chains accountable
Moreover, ruling Governments have failed to establish a mechanism to hold global supply chains accountable. It is due to labour agreements entered between Sri Lanka and destinations are largely memorandums of understanding (MoU)s. The Sri Lankan Government continuously advocated to enter bilateral agreements covering international labour standards, including supply chains due diligence. In addition, strengthening the functions of an anti-trafficking taskforce and developing framework for victims of human trafficking is utmost important. Therefore, NPP Government should enter bilateral agreements for portable justice and extradition treaties to prosecute human traffickers under Sri Lanka’s penal code.
Sri Lanka migrant workers have witnessed numerous manmade and natural catastrophes and most of them became victims at the time of global financial crisis, COVID-19 and breaking out of regional warfare. Containing non-binding return and reintegration policies, initiatives rolled out by ruling Governments to locally integrating returnees became ineffective. Eventually, the majority recipients of such programs have remigrated or found alternative employment. This poses the urgency that NPP Government should collaborate with its counterparts to unfold initiatives to upskill and reskill its workforce for better reintegration. Assessing the needs for local market should done at the Sri Lankan diplomatic missions.
Outbound migration and broadening scope for future labour participation
Sri Lanka has a long history record on outbound migration and according to SLBFE, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Qatar remain as Sri Lanka’s top destinations. Additional to foreign jobs facilitated by local recruitment agencies, Japan, Israel and South Korea governments have initiated direct recruitment for skilled workers under the Government-to-Government (G2G) agreement. On average, 230,000 to 250,000 workers leave Sri Lanka annually to work abroad. However, the country witnessed an approx. 300,000 Sri Lankans leaving Sri Lanka due to economic collapse in the year 2022 and 2023. On top of hiring caregivers, the previous Government launching recruitment drives for potential migrants to take up jobs in Israel’s agriculture sector was largely criticised for putting lives at risk. The NPP Government should treat migrant workers with human dignity and respect. In such situation, the diplomatic mission should extend support when Sri Lankan workers become the victims of manmade and natural crisis. Therefore, building the capacity of mission staff to guarantee the rights of workers is the need of the hour.
Apart from regular destinations, the Sri Lankan Government hasn’t explored different labour migration corridors for its workforce. Exploring the European labour corridor is a great opportunity for deploying Sri Lankan workers when EU member states are demanding for labourers while mitigating the refugees and undocumented crisis. In order to do so, the NPP Government must improve its migration legislation and national labour policies with international labour frameworks. Similarly, the NPP Government developing unique programs with national vocational training centres would create opportunities for trained aspirant migrants to take advantage from different economies in the world.
Improving migration governance with international frameworks
Sri Lanka has ratified a number of international human rights and labour rights conventions. It became the first country in the SAARC region to deposit the instrument of international migrant workers convention in year 1996. However, the Sri Lankan Government remained under international scrutiny for not meeting the international human rights and labour rights obligations. Sri Lanka’s civil society organisations and migrant communities repeatedly pressured lawmakers to improve domestic laws with global labour standards. Yet, due to organisations who directly engaged in safe migration projects being relatively small in numbers, the outcry for improving the laws end up ineffective.
On top of it, the Government of Sri Lanka limiting its collaboration with handpicked organisations has narrowed the perspectives to sharpening the country’s migration governance. Therefore, NPP Government creating a space for civil society engagement would ensure inputs are incorporated to strengthening labour migration policies. Similar to the National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC), the NPP Government forming a national coalition or council exclusively to govern migration is the need of the hour. The Government of Sri Lanka could organise regular workshops to bring interdisciplinary perspectives on labour migration governance. Sri Lanka’s labour thinktanks and migration experts collaborating with State mechanism would enable the country to develop action plans to meeting the demands of future economy outlook.
Sri Lanka Government is a regular participant in the international and regional dialogues on migration and development. In terms of Regional Consultative Process (RCPs) on migration between labour sending and labour-receiving countries, Sri Lanka’s traditional political parties have taken advantage to promote worker welfare initiatives for its aspirant migrants. However, the Sri Lanka Government failed to collaborate with its counterparts to initiate the outcome of such process which includes partnership, knowledge sharing, unfolding of comprehensive information for orientation programme (CIOP) and labour upskilling and reskilling.
The NPP Government taking measures to unfold CIOP is very significant, where it would complement SLBFE’s pre-departure orientation initiative to enhancing the knowledge of potential migrants. On top of its obligatory engagement at human rights frameworks, the Sri Lanka Government party to Global Compact on Migrant (GCM) for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration could underline the areas of collaboration for promoting and protecting human rights.
GCC economic diversification and nationalisation drive
Subsequent to the discovery of hydrocarbon resources in the gulf countries in the early ’70s, the region has evolved from a subsistence economy into an innovation-driven economy. Sri Lanka’s diplomatic ties enabled its workforce to take advantage of such economies. However, the global financial crisis, COVID-19 and regional conflicts pushed gulf countries to shaping their economy policies. Such notion led gulf countries to address the demographic imbalance and speed up nationalisation drive. On top of it, improving visa regime to attract talents and investment, mitigating global climate change issues, and broadening green and blue economies speculates whether Sri Lanka aspirant migrants are equipped enough to take up demand jobs.
In addition, African governments taking advantage of platform economy and domestic worker sectors illustrates the domination of gig economy could impact Sri Lanka’s role in the future economies. Therefore, NPP Government should take measures to redefine the national vocational qualification to meet the demands of new economies.
Conclusion
Sri Lanka will continue promoting labour migration to its top destination. Despite its election manifesto, NPP Government unfolding its promises which includes voting rights and diaspora engagement requires multistakeholder collaboration and legislative reforms. In December 2024, Sri Lanka’s Deputy Labour Minister attending the Labour Market Conference in Saudi Arabia demonstrated NPP’s commitment towards migration governance. However, the NPP Government must do more in terms of addressing the national labour migration gaps with prevailing global migration challenges. Ongoing economy diversification in the gulf region illustrates the need for strengthening its migration governance to restrain shrinking opportunity for the Sri Lankan workforce due to demography imbalance and diversified economic policies.
Despite the fact, the NPP Government should explore the possibilities for collaboration with top destination countries to support Sri Lankan migrants to enhance knowledge, mutual recognition of credentials, fair employment opportunities, and international recognition. In order to do so, the NPP Government should carry out a mapping exercise to identify Sri Lankan experts around the world who can extend their fullest support for improving the country’s migration and development. Forming a migration advisory council with renowned scholars and thinktanks could result in thematic dissertations which can be used for policy debates and see how such perspectives can get Sri Lankans to engage in emerging markets.
Finally, the NPP Government making efforts in bringing changes in Sri Lanka’s political landscape requires a multistakeholder approach and intelligent strategies. Unless the NPP Government makes pledges to address the challenges of climate change, labour shortages, dangerous irregular migration, and human smuggling and trafficking, the newly elected President honouring Sri Lanka’s unsung migrant workers on the 77th Independence Day is just another event.
(The writer is a Sri Lankan labour migrant activist.)