Abu Dhabi: A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the UAE and Sri Lanka on Sunday will keep unscrupulous recruitment agents, who exploit job seekers to the UAE, away from the recruitment sector.
Signed in Abu Dhabi by Nasser Bin Thani Al Hamli, Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation, and Thalatha Athukorala, Sir Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Employment, the MoU aims to foster cooperation in the labour and manpower fields, WAM reported.
It has an annexure of a protocol agreement that will facilitate the process for approving and recruiting domestic workers.
Al Hamli lauded the close relations binding the two countries in labour-related fields, emphasising that the MoU paves the way for a new stage of cooperation and ensure a balanced and effective management of the contractual work cycle of employees.
The MoU will regulate the activities of recruitment agencies working in both countries and ensure transparency and legal compliance in Sri Lankan workers’ recruitment.
The Sri Lankan Minister said the MoU indicates both nations’ keenness to bring transparency in all stages of recruitment and employment.
Under the protocol on domestic workers, the recruitment of Sri Lankan domestic workers will strictly be done in accordance with the laws and regulations, which are enforced in both countries. Only recruitment agencies registered at the ministry are able to process employment applications for domestic workers that have been submitted by employers, said the WAM report.
As many unregistered agents work in the recruitment sector, the MoU will help prevent them from exploiting the job seekers, a top Sri Lankan diploma told Gulf News on Sunday.
“Unscrupulous agents often cheat job seekers as they give bogus promises,” said Sulaiman Jiffry Mohideen, the Sri Lankan Ambassador to the UAE.
This causes many issues such as contract substitution [an original contract made in Sri Lanka substituted by another one upon arrival in the UAE] and related problems, he said.
A recruitment agency in the UAE has to register with the Sri Lankan Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) for recruiting people from Sri Lanka.
Whenever many complaints are raised against an agency, the embassy blacklists that entity, the envoy said. He said such punitive actions are possible against registered agents only.
As the MoU envisages the presence of registered agencies only in the recruitment sector, it will make it easy to control them, the ambassador said.
