Comments on: The Breadwinner or the Nurturing Mother

By: Rochelle

Rochelle — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:28:53 +0000

Well said Lalith! I do feel strongly about this issue and my heart breaks when I hear of women in Sri Lanka yearning to go abroad to earn as little as $50 a month more. I have also witnessed groups of Sri Lankan maids in Amman – dislocated from their own culture and traditions living in a society that is a world away from their own. They often cannot even speak the language….Not to mention the harassment that some endure. I am also a little nervous about the recruitment process and wonder if these local women end up being trafficked…

I would strongly push for greater economic power for Sri Lankan women – in the form of equal pay, labour rights and less discrimination in the work place. Also for child care facilities in the work place to provide the support in the local setting that these women need to boost their earning capacity. Also local employment opportunities.

I would happily come over to educate and help on this!

By: Nimal

Nimal — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:36:20 +0000

Very thought-provoking Lalith. At a very practical level, most of these women go overseas to work for a salary of around Rs 25,000 per month! At the same time, ask any businessman (employer) in Sri Lanka and each of them are either "making do" with people with minimal skills or managing without the people who have the required skills. In other words, there is a (skilled) labour shortage in Sri Lanka. Most employers would gladly pay more than Rs 25,000 per month for a person with the required skills or at least the motivation to learn a new skill.
I think, the answer is to have easy access and motivation to acquire skills (technical schools for adults with no entry requirements – in the wider sense perhaps?) that are needed in Sri Lanka.

By: Wickrama

Wickrama — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:03:19 +0000

Thank you for this article. It is the time to promote skilled labour exportaion and stop sending our women to Middle East. As a country with more than 94% literacy rate we can not depend on the foreign currency earned by house mades. So policy makers should try to replace this by professionals to get the results of our free education system.

By: citizen

citizen — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 02:30:26 +0000

Thank you Lalith for initiating this discussion with insight and clarity. Perhaps it should grow from the roots that you have established, to encompass different branches of the problem such as the very broad subjects of education reform, labour relations and business ethics.
Sri Lanka had the opportunity, soon after independence, to establish an informed/insightful/progressive sense of culture, values, ethics and social structure that would have defined our national identity. Alas we missed that opportunity because we had not produced the leadership with the insight/foresight and sensitivity that was necessary to define/inculcate and forge those definitive traits of our nation.
Now, post war Sri Lanka will perhaps afford us perhaps a never-to -be-repeated second chance. However there is an entire generation (and a half) that has grown up with war and violence integrated into their value system. This has deformed their emotional balance (the “lack of proper limbic conditioning” that you point out). A significant number of them have grown up either without their mothers who have gone abroad for work or fathers who have died or been disabled at war or having become a psychological casualty of war or violence. They have been further paralysed by an education system that is inadequate at its best and socially and personally destructive at its worst.
That is why you deserve the highest compliments for initiating this discussion. I hope we will be able in time (soon) to bring this topic to the fore of our national consciousness as an issue of much importance and high criticality.