The Foreign Employment Bureau says, with the spread of COVID-19 virus, it has taken immediate steps to intervene the activities related to migrant workers.

Accordingly, Chairman of the Bureau Kamal Ratwatte has instructed the relevant officials to take necessary actions directly involving with the labour welfare divisions of diplomatic missions with respect to 16 countries.

Using the provisions allocated by the Workers Welfare Fund, the labour welfare units of 16 foreign diplomatic missions are provided with provisions to facilitate migrant workers who are already affected by the epidemic.

Foreign diplomatic missions of Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Cyprus, Dubai, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait and Lebanon are among the above. These also include Malaysia, Oman, Maldives, Qatar, Riyadh, South Korea and Singapore.

In order to strengthen the Labour Welfare Division, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Skill Development and Employment and Labour Dinesh Gunawardena has instructed the Chairman and the Board of Directors of the Bureau to release additional Rs 8 million immediately to these 16 labour welfare divisions.

Measures have been taken to provide relief to migrant workers irrespective of their present legal status. Migrant workers are facilitated with 1989 hotline of the Foreign Employment Bureau to provide their information.

Information gathered are referred to the Labour Welfare Divisions of respective embassies and problems are being solved with. Officials in the labour sector, foreign diplomats, various organizations and donors have started to work together to provide dry rations for migrant workers.

The Foreign Employment Bureau says the following measures have also been taken to provide relief to migrant workers who have been affected by the epidemic:

The Labour Divisions of 16 foreign diplomatic missions have taken steps to provide the migrant workers with sanitizers, including face masks, hand wash liquids, to protect them from the COVID 19 virus.

Migrant workers are educated via a Facebook account of the Bureau of Foreign Employment, conducting a series of interviews with a specialist doctor in Sri Lanka.

They are being advised how to protect themselves from the virus, through a hotline number introduced by Labour Divisions of foreign diplomatic missions.

All the labour sector officers and high-ranking officials of the Foreign Employment Bureau have initiated a 24-hour active group in WhatsApp, an efficient way of obtaining information, complaints and communication. A lot of worker problems as been solved effectively by getting information, complaints and communicating successfully, says the Bureau. 

The Embassy has provided financial assistance to a stranded migrant worker in Seychelles. A passenger who arrived via Chennai in India by a Japanese ship has been provided with an air ticket. The Embassy of Korea has been provided with 5,000 face masks for migrant workers.