Sri Lankan female domestic workers overseas: mothering their children from a distance |
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Authors: | Swarna Ukwatta |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Demography, University of Colombo, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
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Abstract: | Sri Lanka is one of three countries in Asia, along with the Philippines and Indonesia, where women migrants constitute between
60 and 70% of legal migrants; these female migrants are mainly employed overseas as domestic workers. Since the 1980s, the
out-migration of Sri Lankan females for employment abroad surpassed that of males and the major destination has been countries
in the Middle East. The majority of these women are married and have at least one child; they leave their children in the
care of other family members in their absence. While they usually make arrangements to accommodate the spatial separation
forced by migration, their migration poses many challenges to themselves and their children left behind. Recently, the issue
of children left behind by migrant mothers has attracted growing attention from policy makers in Sri Lanka. Since the social
and emotional ramifications of mothering from a distance and how these mothers cope with them are inadequately investigated,
this article uses data collected from a 2008 survey of 400 Sri Lankan female migrant families to examine the effects of mothers’
migration on how they are mothering their children from a distance, and how they perceive the effects on their children. The
article concludes with some suggested policy recommendations. |
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