Sunday, March 18, 2007

Socialist Women's Rights

The Government of Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has banned mothers from working abroad;

A ban by the Sri Lankan government on young mothers taking up jobs as housemaids in foreign countries, to minimise social disruption at home, has whipped up a storm of protests with rights groups slamming the move as hasty and poorly planned...

More than 60 percent of the 1.5 million Sri Lankans who work abroad are women. Many, employed as housemaids in the Middle East and South-east Asia, leave behind broken homes and young children who are often neglected or abused, sometimes by a close relative or even fathers...

In January, the government decided to raise the minimum wage for jobs as housemaids overseas to 250 US dollars per month from around 100 to 150 dollars, but the plan quickly fell apart after employment agents protested saying foreign employers were not ready to pay such high wages for unskilled work.

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