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| Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Employment and Social Services Dylan Pereira meets with Lebanese Labor Minister Salim Jreissati on Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013. (The Daily Star/DalatiNohra) |
BEIRUT: Sri
Lanka’s plan to ban women travelling abroad to work in menial jobs excludes
Lebanon, a Sri Lankan government minister said Thursday in Beirut, as the two
countries draft an agreement over the issue.
“[There is]
no ban on the travel of domestic workers and Sri Lankan labor to Lebanon, on
the contrary we are working to better the conditions of their experiences here
and raise the age of those with the right to travel from 21 to 23,” Sri Lankan
Minister of Foreign Employment and Social Services Dylan Pereira told
reporters.
His
comments came after meeting Lebanon’s Labor Minister Salim Jreissati at the
latter’s office.
Pereira
also said that his country is teaching its citizens both Arabic and English so
that they can communicate better with their employers in Lebanon.
The meeting
between the two officials was aimed at drafting a new agreement that will soon
be signed governing Sri Lankan labor rights.
Jreissati
said Lebanon guarantees decent labor and fair wages for domestic workers,
adding that he is drafting a code of conduct for decent labor.
Following
the beheading of a 17-year-old nanny in Saudi Arabia, Sri Lankan Information
Minister Keheliya Rambukwella announced last Thursday that women under 25 were
now banned from going to the Arab state to work as maids.
Sri Lankan
Rizana Nafik was charged with smothering a four-month-old baby in Saudi Arabia
in 2005.
Lebanon has
seen many cases of abuse against domestic workers with activists criticizing
the sponsorship system for promoting such practices.
In a 2008
report, Human Rights Watch found that there was an average of one death a week
from unnatural causes among domestic workers in Lebanon, including suicide and
falls from tall buildings.
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