Sri Lanka, the economic crisis has restarted the phenomenon of trafficking in human beings

COLOMBO (AsiaNews) – The economic crisis that has brought Sri Lanka to its knees fuels the phenomenon of human trafficking. Some police operations in recent days have led to some arrests. In Negombo – says ad AsiaNews Ravindu Fernando – human trafficking had already started in 2010 with the aim of reaching Australia. In three years, 12 boats left, even if only one managed to reach the Australian coast. But since June of this year, due to the economic crisis, the push to go abroad in search of work has started again. And most people are convinced that they don’t want to go back due to the current situation in Sri Lanka.

Attempts at repression with “agents” on boats. “For illegal traffickers – explains Ravindu Fernando – the smuggling of human beings is a pure and simple trade. These smugglers do not pay attention to the dangers their customers face during the journey”. Senior government officials tell AsiaNews that, “although a crackdown has been launched throughout the island, it is difficult to catch these traffickers, since the bosses who organize the trips and profit from them operate mostly in the shadows, hiding their activities with sub-agents, skippers and crew members”.

The rescue of the Vietnamese Navy. In this November 303 boat people fleeing Sri Lanka were landed in Vietnam after initial resistance. The group included around 200 men, along with women and children who were rescued in the waters around the Spratly Islands by a Japanese vessel when the fishing vessel they were traveling on ran into trouble and they were rescued by Vietnamese naval officers. The vessel had departed from Myanmar, a country that has sadly become a hub for human trafficking, and was trying to reach Canada by sea. Once taken to Vietnam, the people on board the vessel refused to return to Sri Lanka and asked the Vietnamese authorities to provide them with asylum, either in Southeast Asia or elsewhere. A senior Sri Lankan naval officer revealed that “it is unclear whether all 303 Sri Lankans traveled together or as a group to Myanmar and how they got to Myanmar”. Before they were rescued on November 6, their ship was stranded for almost 40 hours, unable to maneuver and drifting”.

The arrests in a hotel in Badulla. In the same days another trafficking in human beings was broken up through which Sri Lankan women were sent illegally to Middle Eastern countries such as Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The manager and a local broker involved were arrested and indicted, while a woman voluntarily turned herself in to the Crime Investigation Department over her alleged involvement in the racketeering. According to sources of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), finally, four people, including a foreign national, were arrested following a tip-off in a hotel in Badulla last Sunday, November 20th. The persons in question were conducting interviews with some candidates. The people in question were interviewing candidates for a job in Romania: each was asked to pay 1.5 million Rupees (almost 4,000 euros) for this job opportunity. 25 people had already been involved when public officials intervened together with the police to arrest those responsible for the organisation.

Solicitations to the Colombo government. The tragic situation in Sri Lanka is the focus of humanitarian organizations such as the National Fisheries Solidarity Organization (NFSO) an aggregation of organized organizations which fights for the economic and social rights of workers and which has repeatedly urged the Government of Colombo to adopt measures to protect the fishing industry, the main driving economic sector of the country, together with to that of tourism.

* Arundathie Abeysinghe, Asianews