Minister of Foreign Employment Thalatha Atukorale says that Sri Lanka is providing leadership for the Colombo Process to be a bridge between labour sending and receiving countries fostering strong partnership for the Asian region.
Atukorale, who is also the Chair in Office of the Colombo Process (CP), the regional consultative forum of contractual labour originating countries in Asia, said “the CP will soon agree on the role it can play in supporting the overall implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to migration with a specific focus on contractual labour migrants”, “benefitting from the experience of having worked on issues such as ethical labour recruitment, migrant health and remittances over the past 2 years.”
The Minister said “in the forthcoming negotiations on developing the ‘Global Compact on Migration by 2018’ the CP should be ready to engage constructively, building on the SDGs framework.”
She made these observations when she addressed the 6th Global Meeting of Chairs and Secretaries of Regional Consultative Processes on Migration, held in Geneva on Thursday (13 October 2016).
The delegation to the Meeting included Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva Ravinatha Aryasinha, Deputy Permanent Representative Samantha Jayasuriya, Counsellor Shashika Somaratne, and Acting Deputy General Manager of the Foreign Employment Bureau D.G.G.S. Yapa.
