Making sense of migration

Despite Sri Lanka securing a record $7.2 billion in foreign remittances last year there is a need to catalogue and understand the trends of migration in Sri Lanka and find better ways of managing it for the country’s benefit. 

The total number of migrant workers declined by 7.8% to 242,930 in 2016 from 263,443 in 2015, according to the Finance Ministry Annual Report 2016. The labour category under skilled migration including professionals decreased by 5.5% whereas the migration under semi-skilled and unskilled categories decreased by 8.8%. The decline of housemaids is largely a reflection of Government steps to discourage women from seeking jobs in the Middle East and elsewhere by making requirements such as the family background report mandatory, which is clearly having a strong impact on numbers. 

Restricting the financial mobility of women can have mixed results but the Government has staunchly backed the idea that it would be a way to tackle social issues. However, it is unclear if the Government has also looked at the positive results of women having the independence to earn and use the money to educate their children and take care of their families better.  

By creating new economic opportunities, migration can promote economic independence and status for women workers, who provide safety nets that sustain communities at home. Studies indicate that women migrant workers contribute to the development of both sending and receiving countries remittances from their incomes account for as much as 10% of the GDP in some countries, including Sri Lanka. These monetary investments used for food, housing, education and medical services along with newly acquired skills of returnees, can potentially contribute significantly to poverty reduction and improve women’s rights in rural communities.

Yet, while migration can bring new employment and opportunities, it also bears great risks for women, many of whom end up at the lower end of the job market. Female migrants often work as domestic workers and entertainers a euphemism for sex workers in unregulated informal sectors that do not fall under national labour laws. Migrant women routinely lack access to social services and legal protection and are subjected to abuses such as harsh working and living conditions, low wages, illegal withholding of wages and premature termination of employment. Governments have a responsibility to protect women from such exploitation but not by restricting their access to financial empowerment. 

Sri Lanka, still largely a staunch patriarchal society, does not pay enough attention to dividing household chores, child rearing and other tasks equitably between men and women and encouraging men to take a greater part in them. The Philippines, which also has a high percentage of migrant workers who are predominantly women, nonetheless have significantly lower instances of child abuse than Sri Lanka. This clearly shows that it is social attitudes, rather than merely the absence of women, that contributes to the massive escalation of social issues. A point that policy makers need to look at. 

The Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau also has inadequate statistics of skilled labour migration. The country needs to know how many professionals they are losing and in what sectors to adequately address the challenge of brain drain. While both skilled and unskilled labour fundamentally has the freedom to seek employment elsewhere they must also be encouraged to contribute to the local economy by being given better opportunities. If not Sri Lanka’s most precious resource will be lost to this nation.