Risks Start at Home

This article explores factors that make migrant workers from Sri Lanka, 60 to 80 percent of whom are women, vulnerable to risks such as sexual abuse and pregnancy. Viola Perera, coordinator for The Action Network for Migrant Workers at the Women and Media Collective says that part of the problem is lack of education. "In schools, when it comes to reproductive health education, the teachers stop the lessons," she said. "In the school curriculum, lessons focus only on the biological make-up of the reproductive system, while ignoring the psycho-social dynamics of sexuality. These workers hardly know a thing."

A manual on gender training from the Malaysia-based Coordination of Action Research for AIDS and Mobility, a non-governmental group that works to protect the
human rights and health status of migrant workers, states, "Women are often prohibited, due to cultural factors, from learning about their bodies, men's bodies, sex, sexuality and contraceptives. Seeking information on sex and sexuality is taboo." According to the article, such lack of knowledge of reproductive health matters is even more alarming given that in the case of both male and female migrant workers from Sri Lanka, the majority are in the prime of their reproductive age
of 18 to 40, and are away from their homes, probably for the first time. They also often lack social support systems that increase their vulnerabilities to abuse, especially in the case of domestic workers who work in their employers’ households. There is a lack of preventive awareness, services and narrow social perceptions about the needs of these workers.

The article explains that it is important to understand the general profile of migrant workers in order to ensure their reproductive well-being. It is likely in Sri Lanka that the migrant domestic worker is from a rural area, may not have attended school, may even have left the village for the first time. In January 2003, the Migrant Services Centre carried out a survey of those who were sexually abused, and found that 60 percent had a low level of school education, and close to four-fifths had rural backgrounds.

In many cases local women are culturally ill-equipped to avert incidents of sexual violence. One strategy is for offering pre-departure orientations on assertiveness as a
preventive mechanism. According to the article, most community workers believe that the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) is best placed to improve the
situation. “Instead of a 20-day or month-long programme which aims to train good, obedient domestic workers, the SLBFE could run a longer programme which would
address the reproductive concerns of female migrant workers,” suggested Perera.