Abstract:
Labour migration from Sri Lanka has been increasing during past few decades with the
opening of temporary employment opportunities especially in the Gulf Region and it has
generated substantial inflows of remittance to the country‘s economy over the past years.
Having understood the responsibility of protecting and empowering of migrant workers, the
government of Sri Lanka has introduced various legislations and mechanisms for the purpose
of regulating and administration of matters relating to labour migration. Despite all these
measures, Sri Lanka continues to face a number of challenges in the field of labour migration.
Unethical recruitment practices ranging from charging excessive fees, withholding passports,
false information about the age of employees, non-disclosure of employer and the nature of
the job are some of the main concerns face by the authorities. Therefore, it is essential that
more efficient legal framework and mechanisms to regulate labour migration should be
available to prevent unethical recruitment practices in Sri Lanka for the benefit of both
economic growth and social justice. Hypothesis of ‗The existing legal framework in Sri
Lanka is not adequate for prevention and regulation of unethical recruitment practices in
labour migration‘ has been tested to achieve following objectives; To evaluate the
effectiveness of the existing legal framework and identify the complex areas in regulating
ethical recruitment practices, to identify international standards for promoting ethical
recruitment practices and compare with Sri Lankan legal framework and finally come up with
effective and workable suggestions to regulate and prevent unethical recruitment practices in
labour migration are the main objectives of the research. The methodology applied is a
quantitative assessment of available literature and statistics in the broad area of labour
migration in Sri Lanka. A comprehensive study has been carried out to evaluate available
literature such as domestic and international legal instruments, reports and articles published
by the experts in the field. Findings of this research are that the existing legal framework in
Sri Lanka is not effective enough for prevention and regulation of unethical recruitment
practices in labour migration. . Employer accreditation system has not been designed in
consistent with the international standards. Inadequate mechanism for monitoring and
compliance can be identified as a major obstacle.
