Sri Lankan expatriate workers in Jordan return after factory closure ordeal

• Expresses gratitude to an American customer who provided assistance
• Workers faced lack of wages, food, and police assault

By T.K.G.Kapila   

 A group of Sri Lankan expatriate workers in Jordan who lost employment due to the closure of two garment factories without prior notice returned to the country yesterday morning.   

 They said hundreds of Sri Lankan, Indian and Nepal expatriate workers had been in a predicament without wages, sufficient food and other facilities due to the arbitrary closure of the two factories and the foreign investors fled the country.   

 Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Sri Lankan Embassy in Jordan had taken up the issue with the Jordanian Labour Department that provided them all facilities to return to Sri Lanka and paid arrears of wages and other emoluments.    One of the victims Sunethra Padmini of Beliatta said the workers in the factory had not received wages for about nine months and the owners had left secretly. She said when the workers took to the streets and staged protest, the police assaulted them.    Another worker Ajith Pushpakumara of Panadura said they were in a predicament for want of food and basic facilities for about a year and that they would have starved to death if not for the American customer who helped us.