Sri Lankan women migrant workers: more risks, more trafficking during COVID-19« back to dossier
December 2020
By Indraka Ubeysekara, Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation Sri Lanka
There are nearly two million Sri Lankan migrant workers overseas, facing formidable challenges and additional strains in many destination countries where stricter measures, often in breach of migrant, labour, gender and other rights have been enforced since COVID-19. As of the 1st of October 2020, nearly 525,000 migrant workers have been registered to be repatriated from different destination countries. Currently, Sri Lankan migrant workers, mostly women, who are un/der skilled and engaged in informal sectors, are stranded in more than 16 countries with over 100 reported deaths due to COVID-19.
Risks faced by migrant women have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Pandemic imposed travel restrictions, curfews and lock downs, resulting in job losses and wage-cuts among others, have compounded hardships faced by marginalized groups including migrant women. Several studies[1] report that girl and women migrant laborers pay a higher toll than men due to specific gender dynamics. This is no exception for Sri Lankan girl and women migrant workers who are stranded in destination countries in precarious conditions, and those who have returned home. In destination countries, Sri Lankan migrant girls and women are said to be sheltering in safe houses or worksites that are overcrowded with no social distancing capacities. Thousands have lost their jobs and are not able to pay rents. These exacerbated vulnerabilities have exposed them to abuse by job recruitment agencies and authorities who exploit them through deceptive and coercive practices, including passport confiscation, wage theft, unsafe living and working conditions, excessive work demands, forced work without pay and sexual aggression. COVID-19 has also increased vulnerabilities for returnee Sri Lankan girls and women. Reintegration, emotionally, physically and culturally is further challenged economically due to skills mismatches and a rapidly shrinking job market. Dwindling job opportunities and prospects in the country and across borders has led to an important increase in perennial psychological distress and trauma. These interdependent factors only reinforce the vicious cycle of vulnerability and risk for Sri Lankan female migrant workers to be successfully targeted and exploited.
One under-reported side effect of the pandemic is the increased risks of human trafficking. In its simplest definition, human trafficking is recruitment, transportation, transferring, harbouring or receipt of persons by using force, fraud, coercion for exploitative purposes[2]. In Sri Lanka, human trafficking involves sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, and human organ harvesting. Sri Lanka is a labour sending country mostly to the Middle East, West and South East Asia. Human trafficking exploits the vulnerability of especially girls and women migrating for work. Un/der skilled, and ill-informed labour migrants are misled by the promise of better opportunities in destination countries, falling prey to exploitation and modern slavery. Although migrant girls and women were already targeted by illegal recruiters and traffickers prior to the pandemic, COVID-19 has increased opportunities for exploitation, taking advantage of an increase in livelihood insecurity, school closures, job and income losses, desperation, isolation, digitalization and more.
According to studies, women and girls constitute over 80% of trafficked victims out of which 96% of women being trafficked for sexual exploitation. There were many alleged cases of human trafficking reported in Sri Lanka during the lockdown period, involving especially women and children, taking advantage of increased usage of online platforms for grooming and recruitment, and repurposing of many security and protection services for the health sector.
Organized traffickers target girls and women for gender based specific purposes. In Sri Lanka, like in other South Asian countries, gender bias and discriminatory practices, traditions, social norms, taboos and beliefs, disadvantage girls and women. This has negative, if not dire consequences for girls and women in decision making, in having freedom of safe movement, access to education, to information, essential services and income, which could minimize risks and mitigate their exposure to exploitation. Girls and women, often 'pressured by their families' resort to seeking opportunities in highly unregulated and informal sectors, aiding traffickers to exploit their vulnerabilities. Derogatory portrayals of girls and women position them as soft targets for exploitation and gender-based violence by traffickers.
COVID-19, as a single phenomenon, has enhanced opportunities for traffickers to successfully target, recruit and traffic girls and women, preying on their vulnerabilities and systemic loopholes in their access to services and protection.
The EQUIP project[3], implemented by HELVETAS Sri Lanka since 2018, adopts a multi-pronged approach to address the vulnerabilities faced by women by enhancing Government officers' and state institutions capacities in victims' protection services. Through the project, targeted Government officers, as first respondents, policy makers, change agents, receive cutting-age and multidisciplinary skills to provide specialized care services to potential targets and survivors of human trafficking. The healthy and mutually beneficial partnerships with Government institutions, investments to foster better coordination among government officials at the grassroots and continual follow-up are among the key success factors of the project thus far. Data indicates that EQUIP project trained Government officers have already been able to successfully prevent several trafficking attempts.
[1] https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@dgreports/@gender/documents/publication/wcms_101118.pdf
[2] https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html
[3] https://www.helvetas.org/en/sri-lanka/what-we-do/how-we-work/our-projects/Asia/Sri-Lanka/sri-lanka-trafficking-free
