Dec 15, Colombo: Sri Lankan government is planning to introduce a new biometric system as a measure to curtail illegal migration. Accordingly the Foreign Employment Act would be amended to include the measures, government sources said.

The Ministry of Child Development and Women's Empowerment and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) met recently to collaborate more closely on interventions of human trafficking, smuggling, transnational crime and exploitation.

A recent US State Department report found Sri Lanka to be a country of source and origin for men, women and children trafficked for domestic labor and sexual exploitation.

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.