Sri Lanka to cut maid supply amid abuse fears

Sri Lanka is planning to trim the number of maids employed in the Middle East amid concerns about the number of abuse cases, a labour official has reportedly said.

Kingsley Ranawaka, chairman of the Jeddah-based Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), was quoted by an international media source as saying that officials have decided to curb the number of housekeepers due to the number of complaints of ill-treatment.

The bureau said that in the first half of this year, it received a total of 3,400 complaints, including 577 cases of breach of contract and 479 cases of sexual abuse and other forms of physical violence, Arab News reported on Monday.

Saudi Arabia in particular has been a main market for Sri Lankan workers. For years as many as 500,000 maids work in the kingdom at any time, according to data published by the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh.

However, last year the US-based Human Rights Watch rebuked Arab governments for not doing enough to eradicate the abuses against Sri Lankan domestic workers in the region.