KUWAIT: Sri Lanka’s manpower development companies that recruit and send Sri Lankan domestic workers to foreign countries have halted sending laborers to Kuwait, according to local sources. The sources said that a new decision was expected on the issue as Sri Lanka is waiting for a labor agreement with Kuwait that will include conditions and rules to bring in Sri Lankan helpers to Kuwait. They said Sri Lankan side wants Kuwait to reconsider salaries of domestic helpers and increase their minimum wage, in addition to give eligible leave for each laborer.

41 offices suspended

Meanwhile, the tripartite committee (Interior, Commerce ministries and Public Authority for Manpower) said that on the first day of implementing the ministerial decision with regards to domestic help offices to use the K-Net in collecting fees, six violations were recorded, and the offices were suspended for six months. The inspection team also discovered 35 domestic help offices that do not have K-Net machines in violation of Commerce Ministry circulations. These offices were suspended and referred to investigation authorities.

Smart Identification

In another development, Public Authority of Manpower asked offices and companies of domestic helpers to commit to issuing the “Smart Worker Identification”, through the government’s unified application “My ID”, for helpers registered on the facility’s license. The ID that was launched on February 2023, enables the Kuwaiti family to check the details of the helpers before allowing them to carry out the job in order to stop loose labor and commercial cheating. Manpower urged citizens to check the smart ID of workers when they go to the offices and compare the contracts and receipts to make sure they belong to the office being dealt with.