Rape and Dinars

Wednesday 6th September, 2023

A Kuwaiti court has awarded compensation to the tune of Rs. 6.8 million to a Sri Lankan woman who was raped by her employer’s son repeatedly and forced to undergo an abortion. An attempt to pack her off to Sri Lanka came a cropper as the Kuwaiti airport personnel found her to be too ill to fly and alerted the Sri Lankan embassy. But for the timely intervention of the Kuwaiti authorities and the Sri Lankan diplomats, her plight would not have come to light. Rape is considered a fate worse than death for a woman, and no amount of money will help right the wrong at issue, but the judicial decision in question has shown that the migrant workers who suffer sexual assault, etc., at the hands of their employers can have justice served with the help of their diplomats. It is hoped that the successful legal battle in Kuwait will set a precedent and migrant workers will benefit from it.

The Kuwaiti law is said to prove for life imprisonment and even the death penalty for rape. The person who raped the Sri Lankan worker must not be allowed to walk free by paying her compensation. What would have happened to him if he had been found guilty of raping a Kuwaiti woman? The person who terminated her pregnancy illegally must also be brought to justice. It is hoped that the international human rights groups will take up this issue and bring pressure to bear on the Kuwait government to ensure that punishment is meted out to the rapist in keeping with the severity of the criminal offence he has committed.

What has been paid in dinars as compensation to the unfortunate rape victim in Kuwait may also be counted as part of Sri Lanka’s foreign earnings. Many are the unskilled female Sri Lankan workers who undergo sexual assault, and other forms of cruelty at the hands of their employers in West Asia, and such crimes often go unreported for obvious reasons. The victims are intimidated into silence, or they choose to remain silent as their chances of obtaining justice are remote; most of them lack the wherewithal to fight legal battles.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has pointed out that since adultery as well as fornication is criminalised in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon and the UAE, rape victims could face the prospect of detention, prosecution and punishment if they cannot furnish irrefutable evidence of rape. HRW has revealed that a Sri Lankan worker who delivered a child after being raped by her employer, some years ago, had to languish in a West Asian prison for nine months because she could not meet the standard of evidence required by the court which heard her case.

Whenever a Sri Lankan woman is killed or raped in West Asia, the lawmakers here thunder in Parliament against sending unskilled workers overseas for employment, and demand that a policy decision be made urgently to send only skilled workers for foreign jobs. But the issue is forgotten when furore over it subsides and other issues crop up grabbing media attention.

It may not be feasible and/or fair to take immediate action to prevent the people who are desperate to escape from poverty from migrating as unskilled workers because the state cannot look after them. They have families to feed and clothe. (Even some of the Sri Lankan professionals who migrate in search of foreign employment have to settle for odd jobs, according to media reports.) But the need for Sri Lanka to work towards ending its shameful dependence on unskilled workers’ remittances to bolster its foreign exchange reserves cannot be overstated.

Skill provision could be integrated into social protection and poverty alleviation programmes so that there will be no need for the poor to migrate via illegal channels as unskilled workers and expose themselves to danger.