Crisis-hit Sri Lanka permits 21-yr-olds to work abroad

COLOMBO: Crisis-hit Sri Lanka on Tuesday reduced the minimum age at which women can work overseas, from 23 years to 21 years. The country’s foreign currency reserves are so low that the government has restricted imports even of essentials, including food, fuel and medicine.

Sri Lanka imposed age restrictions on women working abroad in 2013 after a 7-year-old Sri Lankan girl was beheaded in Saudi Arabia over the death of a child in her care.

Following that tragic execution, only women older than 23 years were allowed to go abroad, while for Saudi Arabia, the minimum age was 25. However, Sri Lanka eased these restrictions, in the wake of the economic crisis, enabling women to earn much-needed dollars for the bankrupt economy.

More than 1.6 million people of the 22 million Sri Lankans work abroad, mainly in the middle east.

Remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad have long been a key source of foreign exchange for the country, bringing in around $7 billion per year. This number plummeted during the pandemic to $5.4 billion in 2021 and was foreseen to drop under $3.5 billion in 2022 because of the economic crisis, the country had been going through.