By Fazeena Saleem
DOHA: Number of Sri Lankans working in Qatar increased by 7.3 percent last year. But compared to their male counterparts fewer women have come here to work, said an official yesterday.
Qatar, the largest employment provider to Sri Lankan nationals in recent years, received 56,900 skilled and semi-skilled workers last year. In 2011, only 52,741 Sri Lankan workers came to Qatar, a senior official at the Sri Lankan embassy told The Peninsula.
Majority of Sri Lankans came to Doha were men, while the number of women workers coming to Qatar dwindled.
In 2011, 9,302 women came to Doha seeking jobs. Majority of them were domestic workers and the number reduced to 7,306 in 2012.
“Many women come to Qatar to work as domestic helpers. The number of women coming here has come down because of the Sri Lankan government’s policy to reduce migration of women to Gulf countries as house maids,” said the official.
He added that the embassy receives a maximum of three runaway housemaids, and number of workers with complaints about wages and poor facilities at work places on a daily basis.
“We do our best to end disputes between workers and employers as soon as possible either through direct discussions or through the Ministry of Labour,” said the official.
“The embassy has a safe house for runaway maids, but as per law we can keep them only for 24 hours. We hand them over to the CID and then follow up ther cases,” he added.
Labour migration from Sri Lanka has grown during the last several decades. Sri Lanka has sent abroad some two million workers, nearly 10 percent of its population.
Overseas migrant workers account for nearly a quarter of the economically active population of Sri Lanka. According to the country’s Bureau of Foreign Employment, remittance by overseas migrant workers total over $5bn annually, accounting for almost as much as the revenue from the country’s total exports. Of the remittances, about 60 percent are from Middle East.
The Peninsula
