War affected women in North exploited by SL ministry agents

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 October 2010, 06:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka government ministries affected by the slump in garment exports due to the loss of GSP Plus face an acute shortage of workers in the garment industries in the South. The workers, mostly women, have left due to drastic pay cuts. The ministries now attempt to lure war affected young women in the North to work in the garment factories in the South at much lower salary. In this context, two groups of young women from Thellippazhai and Uduvil Divisional Secretariat areas in Jaffna have been taken to Colombo Thursday by the agents of some ministries, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, an attempt to entice some war affected young women in Ki’linochchi in Vanni with employment by a company in Kandy with the intention of misusing them had been stopped with the timely intervention of local social activists.

Particularly the young women from the families uprooted by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) from Valikaamam North, now living in camps and with relatives for nearly twenty years fall easy prey to this exploitation, the sources added.

Some of the above young women had been already taken to Colombo to work in the garment industries.

The Sinhala women in South have lost interest in working in the garment industries as their salaries had been cut down to almost half the earlier amount.

The Tamils affected by war in the North, particularly the war widows and other women are exploited as a source of cheap labour in construction works and similar projects in the North.