Migrant rights group lobbies for voting opportunities for Sri Lankan workers overseas

• Says over 1.5 million migrant workers should be given right to vote even if they are not in Sri Lanka

By Shailendree Wickrama Adittiya 

The Community Development Services (CDS) is continuing their efforts towards giving migrant workers the opportunity to vote at local elections even if they are not in the country at the time.

At a media sensitisation workshop held yesterday, CDS Executive Director Andrew Samuel said that the organisation will be continuing its efforts to ensure migrant workers can exercise their right to vote, suggesting five ways of doing so.  These include adapting the postal voting system, using embassy or consular offices for voting, electronic voting, in-person voting by setting up polling booths in strategic locations, and proxy voting.

The reason the topic is being spoken about in such detail is due to the contribution to the country made by migrant workers. “We are lobbying for this because there are 1.5 to 1.9 million migrant workers sending remittance to the value of $7 billion,” Samuel said, adding that more than 90% of these migrant workers are employed in the Gulf region.

He added: “They don’t have the opportunity to vote during an election if they are overseas,” admitting that it was a laborious process to allow migrant workers to vote at embassy or consular offices.

The CDS Executive Director also stated that the organisation had issued a statement to all candidates of the 2019 Presidential Election, looking at areas like human and labour rights of migrant workers and their families, women, migration, and the economy, governance and migration, and migration and development. According to Samuel, some of the candidates had met with representatives of CDS, while some had incorporated parts of the statement to their election manifesto but had failed to delve deeper into the topic.

“They were looking at us for pointers for their manifestos so they could talk on political platforms and media outlets,” he said.

Pic by Indraratna Balasuriya