25th

September 2013 Media Statement Government should invest in providing long term childcare to families of women employed overseas. The Women and Media Collective is very concerned that the recently issued circular of the Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare requires prospective women migrants to provide information on their family background and evidence of adequate childcare arrangements as a condition for leaving for employment overseas. WMC recognizes this as an infringement of a womans right to paid work as well as a direct measure to remove from men their accountability towards the welfare of the family and the care of children. Sri Lankan women comprise 48.3% of migrant workers employed overseas. The Central Bank estimates that in 2011, SLRs 335,201 million was remitted by workers employed in the Middle East where the bulk of women are employed as housemaids. The Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau records that 67% of women migrant workers are between the ages 25 and 44 years. These women are most likely to be married with children. The action of the Ministry sends out several extremely detrimental messages not only to working age women, but also to society in general, that the state has no hesitation in curtailing womens right to work. The circular re-enforces patriarchal norms that lays the sole responsibility of the welfare of the family on women, clearly disregarding mens responsibilities and accountability for the family. The fact that the circular is only applied to women is highly questionable, if the intent is to ensure that the concept of the family is protected, since there are no such restrictions on men who also seek overseas employment as short term migrant workers. Further, it leaves open controlling and restricting the right of single mothers with children to seek employment overseas given the common perception that a family by definition includes both parents. WMC most urgently requests that the Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare review this decision to control womens right to employment. If, as the Ministry appears to be positing, it is for the well being of the families of migrant workers, WMC strongly recommends that the government

also introduces restrictions on overseas employment of men with infants or children. WMC demands that the government, swiftly pushes through regulations that will invest a minimum of 30% of all foreign exchange remittances of migrant workers for the provision of childcare assistance on a long term basis for women who need employment overseas to raise the stand of living of their children, who want to be able to build a house for the family and whose remittances have been the mainstay of state coffers for more than thirty years.