Geetha wants to reimpose restrictions on women with children working overseas

• Foreign Employment Minister not consulted

By Kalani Kumarasinghe 

State Minister of Women and Child Affairs Geetha Kumarasinghe has called for the reintroduction of regulations which prohibit women with children under the age of five, from seeking overseas employment. 

Speaking to the Daily Mirror, State Minister Kumarasinghe said that the current provisions allowing women with young children to migrate for employment is unfair by children.   
“I think this is very very unfair. A two year old child can’t talk, let alone do anything on their own. They are not in safe hands. Therefore the women with such young children shouldn’t go to work, leaving their child. At least they should wait for the child to turn five years,” Kumarasinghe explained.  

“This is my personal opinion and I’m going to request that the age limit be revised,” she added.   

In 2022, the Minister of Labour and Foreign Employment Manusha Nanayakkara submitted a Cabinet paper requesting the revision of the regulation. The Cabinet’s decision to partially ease the Family Background Report (FBR) requirement for female migrant workers was welcomed as a positive step towards encouraging female labour migration from Sri Lanka.  Critics of the policy have argued that the FBR introduced in June 2013 to deter women with children under the age of five was discriminatory, and encouraged undocumented migration of workers. Initially, the FBR only applied to female domestic worker departures, but in August 2015, it was extended to include all female migrants.  
Asked if the State Minister was in talks with the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment, Kumarasinghe said that she will be having a discussion with President Ranil Wickremesinghe who is also the Minister of Women, Child Affairs and Social Empowerment.   

“As soon as the President returns from his overseas travel, I will be taking this matter up with him,” she said. Kumarasinghe said that she is ready to follow up the matter with Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe as well.   

When inquired if State Minister Kumarasinghe has communicated her request to revise the regulations, Minister Nanayakkara’s Media Secretary said no such communication had taken place and that the Minister has not been consulted on the matter.   

The minimum age requirement for women with children who seek employment overseas has been discussed at length, at the Parliamentary level, with the Parliamentary Select Committee on gender equality requesting to make necessary recommendations. Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle of the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus in the past has also requested the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment to reconsider the cabinet decision. She said that the optimal physical and mental development of the children will be adversely affected during the first five years of a child’s life, especially in the case of absent mothers.