Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Poverty drives the unsuspecting poor into the
hands of traffickers Published reports & articles
from 2000 to 2025 gvnet.com/humantrafficking/SriLanka.htm
Sri Lanka is
primarily a source and, to a much lesser extent, a destination for men and
women trafficking for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual
exploitation. Sri Lankan men and women migrate willingly to Kuwait, Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, and
Singapore to work as construction workers, domestic servants, or garment
factory workers. Some of these workers find themselves in situations of
involuntary servitude when faced with restrictions on movement, withholding
of passports, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and debt bondage that is, in
some instances, facilitated by large pre-departure fees imposed by labor
recruitment agencies and their unlicensed sub-agents. Children are trafficked
within the country for commercial sexual exploitation and, very infrequently,
for forced labor. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June,
2009 Check out a later country report here and possibly a full TIP Report here |
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Sri Lanka. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEB-PAGE Students If you are looking for
material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of Human Trafficking are of particular
interest to you. Would you like to
write about Forced-Labor? Debt
Bondage? Prostitution? Forced Begging? Child Soldiers? Sale of Organs? etc. On the other
hand, you might choose to include precursors of trafficking such as poverty and hunger. There is a lot to
the subject of Trafficking. Scan other
countries as well. Draw comparisons
between activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. HELP for Victims International Organization for
Migration, IOM ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** '100 kids abused
daily' in Sri Lanka Susannah Price,
Colombo Correspondent, BBC News, February 9, 1999 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/276054.stm [accessed 24
December 2010] The scale of the abuse
has never been widely investigated. The researchers into this first draft
study on sexually exploited and abused children concluded there were between
10,000-15,000 boys involved in the sex trade, not only in beach areas but
also in the hill country and near other tourst
sites. They found the boys were mostly
aged between eight and 15 and while most of them came from fishing hamlets
and coastal villages, about a third were lured from the inland rural areas by
promises of work. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Sri Lanka U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/sri-lanka/
[accessed 25 June
2021] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR Traffickers
exploited men, women, and children in forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation.
Traffickers recruited women from rural areas with promises of urban jobs in
the hospitality sector, salons, spas, and domestic work but exploited some in
forced labor. While conditions for most tea plantation workers on larger
corporate tea estates met international certification standards, such as Fair
Trade, some smaller tea estate owners exploited men and women in bonded
labor. NGOs documented cases in which employers “sold” workers’ debts to
another estate and forced the workers to move. The same reports stated that
some tea estates illegally deducted more than 75 percent of workers’ daily
earnings for miscellaneous fees and repayment of debts, including charging
workers for the pay slip itself. Three international organizations reported the
forced labor continued on at least nine tea estates during the year. PROHIBITION OF CHILD
LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT Children worked in
the construction, manufacturing, mining, transport, street vending, and
fishing industries and as cleaners and helpers, domestic workers, and street
vendors. Children also worked in agriculture during harvest periods. Children
displaced by the war were especially vulnerable to employment in hazardous
labor. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/sri-lanka/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 7 July
2020] G4. DO INDIVIDUALS
ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION? Migrant workers recruited
in Sri Lanka are often exposed to exploitative labor conditions abroad.
Although the government has increased penalties for employing minors, many
children continue to work as household servants and face abuse from
employers. Women and children in certain communities are vulnerable to forced
sex work. The government has made some attempts to address human trafficking,
but prosecutions and measures to identify and protect victims remain
inadequate, and complicity among public officials is a serious problem,
according to the US State Department. 2017 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor Office of Child
Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking, Bureau of International Labor
Affairs, US Dept of Labor, 2018 www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ilab/ChildLaborReport_Book.pdf [accessed 22 April
2019] www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2017/ChildLaborReportBook.pdf [accessed 6 May
2020] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor [page 921] There are reports
of children from tea estates being trafficked internally to perform domestic
work in Colombo; their payments are withheld and their movements are restricted.
(2) Children, predominantly boys, are also forced into commercial sexual
exploitation in coastal areas as part of the sex tourism industry. (2; 15). Sri Lanka takes
measures to curb illegal migration ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka,
December 15, 2007 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 28 August
2011] Media Secretary to
the Ministry of Child Development and Woman's Empowerment Indrani
Sugathadasa said that human trafficking is not a
large scale problem in Sri Lanka compared to other South Asian
countries. However Sri Lankan men and
women who migrate legally to work as laborers or housemaids to Middle Eastern
countries find themselves in situations of involuntary servitude as they are
faced with restricted movement and physical or sexual abuse. According to Sri
Lanka’s Foreign Employment Bureau, about one million Sri Lankans work abroad,
of whom 60 percent are women. Of these, 54 percent work as domestic workers
and are subject to risks of abuse, sexual harassment and forced labor. How Human
Traffickers Snare Poor Victims to Kenya Misery Dominic Wabala, The Nation (Nairobi), January 8, 2007 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 11
September 2011] The story of the
six young men started in Jaffna, eastern Sri Lanka, from where they were
lured with promises of hotel jobs in Cyprus. "There are many young
people who would jump at the chance of working in Europe. It is better than
being unemployed and poor at home," one of the young men, Francis
Angelo, told the Sunday Nation. Each of them fell
victim to a man who passed himself as an employment agent. The man, only identified
as Hilmy, was known for scouring the villages of
eastern and central Sri Lanka in search of gullible youth willing to risk
everything they owned for a chance to work in Europe. Karuna Group and LTTE
Continue Abducting and Recruiting Children Human Rights Watch,
New York, 29 March 2007 [accessed 24
December 2010] Despite promises to
investigate abductions of children by the pro-government Karuna
group, Sri Lankan authorities have taken no effective action and abductions continue,
Human Rights Watch said today. The armed opposition Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) also continue to recruit children in Sri Lanka and use
them as soldiers. Commentary: 'I am
an orphan, not a child soldier. . . ' SiberNews Commentary, 13 November
2007 www.topix.com/forum/world/sri-lanka/TOAEI02J7IKC4DUMG [accessed 24
December 2010] You as a reader put
your self in one of these situations. How would you react? Would you not want
to protect your brothers and sisters from the same tortures that you faced?
Or would you be thinking about child rights and just watch others being put
through the same misery as you. If we had given these children's a good life
and education, they would follow international child rights standards. But
what the government did was take these away from them and teach them that
those rights are only in paper. What then stops them from picking up arms to
protect themselves and others? Joint Effort To Nab
Lankan Tsunami Child Trafficking Trawler Upali Rupasinghe
in Kolkata, Daily News, 20 January 2005 www.dailynews.lk/2005/01/20/new14.html [accessed 24
December 2010] archives.dailynews.lk/2005/01/20/new14.html [accessed 28
September 2016] The Indian Coast
Guard along with the Indian Navy and Police are trying to locate a fishing
trawler said to be packed with Sri Lankan tsunami orphans to be sold to
Western couples by child traffickers. Free Democracy February 23, 2006 freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2006/02/uae-horrendous-record-of-child-slavery.html [accessed 30
November 2010] UAE : HORRENDOUS
RECORD OF CHILD SLAVERY - WORK WORRIES - Sri Lankan women are trafficked to
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar,
mainly as sex workers or for forced labor. Orphaned children
face a new nightmare of abuse Farah Farouque and Linda Morris, The Sydney Morning Herald, 5
January 2005 Click [here]
to access the article. Its URL is not
displayed because of its length [accessed 24 June
2013] In Thailand, a
12-year-old Swedish boy may have been abducted from a hospital, and in Sri
Lanka The Island reported yesterday that Tiger rebels in the north, who have
a history of using child soldiers, had begun to abduct displaced children
under the guise of offering shelter.
The Island claimed the Tigers, whose numbers have seriously diminished
in their north-eastern strongholds, were targeting boys aged between 12 and
14. Tamil Tigers
Forcibly Recruit Child Soldiers Human Rights Watch,
New York, 11 November 2004 www.hrw.org/en/news/2004/11/09/sri-lanka-tamil-tigers-forcibly-recruit-child-soldiers [accessed 24
December 2010] By abducting
children or threatening their families, the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam have recruited thousands of child soldiers in Sri Lanka since active
fighting ended in 2002, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, or Tamil Tigers) use intimidation and threats to
pressure Tamil families in the north and east of Sri Lanka to provide sons
and daughters for military service. When families refuse, their children are
sometimes abducted from their homes at night or forcibly recruited while
walking to school. Parents who resist the recruitment of their children face
retribution from the Tamil Tigers, including violence or detention. Living in Fear - Child
Soldiers and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka Human
Rights Watch Report, November 10, 2004 www.hrw.org/en/reports/2004/11/10/living-fear [accessed 24 December 2010] SUMMARY - LTTE RECRUITMENT AND USE OF CHILDREN BEFORE
THE CEASE-FIRE
- Second, children who witnessed or suffered abuses by Sri Lankan security
forces often felt driven to join the LTTE. Government abuses prior to the
cease-fire included unlawful detention, interrogation, torture, execution,
enforced disappearances, and rape. A 1993 study of adolescents in Vaddukoddai in the North found that one quarter of the
children studied had witnessed violence personally.3 In response, many children joined the
LTTE, seeking to protect their families or to avenge real or perceived
abuses. Sri Lanka: hotbed
for sexual exploitation of children Tamil Eelam News
Services, 23 Jun 2004 www.tamileelamnews.com/cgi-bin/news/exec/view.cgi/3/2781 [accessed 24
December 2010] Of the 1643 cases
reported last year, 734 of them were related to sexual abuse and much to the
alarm of children’s rights advocates, only a meagre 30 foreign paedophiles have been arrested over the past two years
and few have been prosecuted. “Children are not
only being sexually abused here by pedophiles from other countries, but Sri
Lanka also serves as a transit point for smuggling children to and from other
countries,” said a children’s rights advocate. Concern over Sri Lanka being a transit
point mounted after seven Chinese orphans were detected at the Katunanayake airport while they were on their way to the
West. They were being accompanied by suspected traffickers whom authorities
believe may have been taking them for organ transplant or child sex. End Child
Exploitation - Faces of Exploitation [PDF] UNICEF, Faces of
Exploitation, January 2003, ISBN: 1 871440 26 2 www.childtrafficking.com/Docs/unicef_2003__faces_of_explo.pdf [accessed 24
December 2010] [page 22] CHILDREN IN THE SEX
INDUSTRY
- Children may also work independently, offering themselves for cash, as do
many of the 10,000 to 15,000 boys selling themselves to sex tourists on the
beaches of Sri Lanka. ECPAT Sri
Lanka/PEACE
[PDF] ECPAT International
annual report - July 2002 - June 2003 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 11 September
2011] [page 109] ECPAT Sri
Lanka/PEACE
- PEACE was launched in 1989 against the commercial sexual exploitation and
abuse of children by both local and foreign paedophiles.
It has a 20 member Consultative Committee, a 5 member Core Committee, a network
of Children’s/Youth Clubs, and a host of volunteers carrying out its aims and
objectives. Its objectives are to create awareness of the problem of sexual
exploitation of children and child labour in Sri Lanka; to influence National
Policy related to the protection of children; and to prevent children from
being lured or forced into prostitution and hazardous employment. Prostitution of
Children and Child-Sex Tourism: - An Analysis of Domestic and International
Responses
[PDF] Eva J. Klain, JD, American Bar Association Center on Children
and the Law, April 1999 www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/Prostitution%20of%20Children%20and%20Child%20Sex%20Tourism.pdf [accessed 31 August
2014] www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/189251NCJRS.pdf [accessed 18
February 2018] [page 34] OVERVIEW OF THE
PROBLEM
- Sri Lanka: 100,000 children between the ages of 6 and 14 are kept in
brothels and an additional 5,000 children between 10 and 18 are working in
tourist areas. Invitation to Sri
Lanka Apparel Sourcing Fair 2002 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 11
September 2011] COMPLIANCE - Sri Lanka has an
exemplary record as a socially compliant producer. Sri Lanka
has no child labor or forced labor complies with health and safety standards
and employs best practice in labor standards. Poverty,
Globalization, Social Customs & South Asian Children in Prostitution [PDF] Zahid Shahab Ahmed
(Pakistan), 2005 www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/AhmedAsianChildrenProstitution.pdf [accessed 25
December 2010] INTRODUCTION [page
5]
Child prostitution is rampant in Sri Lanka. The availability of child sex is
publicized in magazines, web sites and chat rooms. According to a study there
are 15,000 children engaged in the sex trade. The government itself estimates
there are approximately 30,000 children involved. Sex tourism is easily seen
and widely known to occur in the south and southwestern coast. Boys
victimized here are known as Beach Boys. They operate in gangs or
independently. An Inconvenient
Truth Samantha Catanese, Immaculata High School
Child Slave Labor IHSCSL News, December 2006 ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=174 [accessed 25
December 2010] "I work in a
house that has five family members. I’m the only servant. I’m very busy all
day working, washing, cleaning and preparing food. The children in the family
go to school, but I don’t get to go. They can also watch television, but I’m
not allowed. I’m not allowed to play with the children. I’m always working. I
sleep on the floor in the dining room. I’ve never been home to visit since
beginning this work. My parents came to visit me twice, and collected some
money from the family, but I don’t know how much." -- Salani Radnayaka,
a ten-year-old girl working as a live-in domestic servant for a family in
Colombo, Sri Lanka The US State Department
Charges That The LTTE Terrorists Sexually Exploit Some Children After
Abduction From Homes Walter Jayawardhana, LankaWeb, Los
Angeles, 6 November 2002 www.lankaweb.com/news/items02/110602-1.html [accessed 25
December 2010] [accessed 6 May
2020] In the second
annual report presented to the Congress for the year 2002, through which the
United States was seeking to bring international attention to "the
horrific practice of trafficking in persons" the US State Department
said, "The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) abduct and hold
children against their will for purposes of forced labor, military conscription
and in some cases, sexual exploitation. A ceasefire with the LTTE has been in
place since December 2001." Easy Targets -
Violence Against Children Worldwide Human Rights Watch
Report, September 2001 www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/children/7.htm#_ednref82 [accessed 25
December 2010] VII. VIOLENCE IN THE
WORKPLACE
- In Sri Lanka, Human Rights Watch spoke to about seventy children during a
1998 investigation of the treatment of child domestic workers. Almost all of
the children reported being punished by their employer for being “naughty,”
for being careless, or for not completing assigned tasks. The punishment
ranged from deprivation of privileges, to smacking, and beatings with a cane
or stick. Several children had been deliberately burnt. Some of the children
had been badly injured during these “punishment” sessions and many had scars
caused by beatings. Several of the Sri
Lankan girls we interviewed also experienced sexual abuse at the hands of
their employer, their employer’s children, or their employer’s friends. Such
abuse is frequently known to agents who arrange for the children’s
employment. One agent told us of how he had recruited over a thousand
children for domestic service when he knew that the primary purpose of the
recruitment was sexual. Sri Lanka urged to
tackle child trafficking Kyodo News
International, Colombo, 3 Jan. 2001 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 11
September 2011] The latest
statistics reveal there are more than 100,000 child vagrants in Sri Lanka
below the age of 16. Many work like
slaves in tea kiosks, small restaurants and as domestic servants under
pathetic and unpleasant conditions.
Some girls and boys are used by drug dealers and smugglers to
transport and sell drugs and contraband goods and some are used to beg on the
streets. Almost none of the children
are able to go to school and children, both male and female and as young as
11, are forced into brothels.
Additionally, the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam often use
young boys and girls as child soldiers.
And the figures are increasing day by day. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 6 June 2003 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/srilanka2003.html [accessed 24
December 2010] [49] The Committee
welcomes the State party’s ratification of ILO Conventions Nos. 138
and 182 in 2000 and 2001, respectively.
Nevertheless, it remains concerned at the high proportion of children,
including very young children, working as domestic servants, in the
plantation sector, on the street and in other parts of the informal sector. Human Rights
Overview Human Rights Watch [accessed 24
December 2010] ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 8, 2006 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61711.htm [accessed 11
February 2020] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– Internal trafficking in male children was also a problem, especially from
areas bordering the northern and eastern provinces. Protecting Environment and Children Everywhere, a domestic NGO,
estimated that there were 6 thousand male children between the ages of 8 and
15 years engaged as sex workers at beach and mountain resorts. Some of these
children were forced into prostitution by their parents or by organized
crime. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor U.S. Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2005 www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/sri-lanka.htm [accessed 24
December 2010] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Some children from rural areas are reportedly sent
to work as domestic servants in urban households where, due to debts owed by
their parents to traffickers, they may find themselves in situations that
amount to debt bondage. The government
estimates that more than 2,000 children are engaged in prostitution.
The majority of children engaged in prostitution are victimized by local
citizens, though there are reports of sex tourism as well. Trafficking of children typically does not
cross national borders; children are trafficked within the country to work as
domestic servants and for the purposes of sexual exploitation, especially at
tourist destinations. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery – Sri
Lanka", http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/SriLanka.htm, [accessed
<date>] |
