Lankans in Bahrain to be registered

26 March 2011 10:00 am Views - 4258

A campaign is underway to trace every Sri Lankan living in Bahrain. It has been launched after Sri Lankan officials struggled to contact people to give them updates on the situation during the country's unrest.

Sri Lanka honorary consul general P B Higgoda said with no diplomatic mission in Bahrain, only a limited number of expatriates were traced.

"We have an online expatriate registration form which all Sri Lankan nationals are advised to fill in," he said.

"In case of domestic workers, we do not have additional details and find it difficult to locate them."

Higgoda said officials were now contacting manpower agencies to provide them with details of Sri Lankan housemaids so that their details can be registered.

He said it was important to register the details of all Sri Lankans, which could be used in case of an emergency.

More than 14,000 Sri Lankans live and work in Bahrain out of which 3,500 are domestic workers and the rest skilled and semi-skilled workers in garment factories, technical staff and engineers.

Meanwhile, Higgoda said a temporary travel ban on new-hire housemaids travelling to Bahrain was expected to be lifted in the next few weeks. He said an average of 200 maids from Sri Lanka arrived every month to work in Bahrain.

Earlier this month, Sri Lankan Foreign Employment Bureau temporarily suspended housemaids from coming to Bahrain because of the unrest.-(TradeArabia News Service)