There is a drought, and the paddy fields don’t look promising in Ganewatta. Dotting the square plots are homes in different stages of completion. There are very few clay houses. Here a plot with foundation laid, here a house with stark walls and little else, there another nearing completion.
These houses are a visual representation of the cycle of migration – hopes and dreams, some realised and some interrupted, many in progress.
Kurunegala is one of the largest migrants-sending districts in Sri Lanka. There are 30 divisions in the district and the highest number go from Kurunegala town, Ganewatta, and Ridigama.
In the market street in Kurunegala town, there are over two dozen manpower companies. There are 100 in the entire district.
Hidden inside new and rundown buildings are plush offices. Up two steep flights of stairs is one such office, with a smartly dressed young women handling the front office. Closed circuit cameras gleam from high up on the wall. The ladies entertain a few questions (yes, we can supply men free of charge; no, there are no Tamil speaking women; no, there is a charge), before the intercom rings. The rest of the conversation moves indoors, to the manager’s cabin, which is even plusher. On his desk are a stack of papers and passports. A computer monitor shows a split screen of the camera streaming.
Despite the manager’s lack of English, he makes it clear he is suspicious of the exchange.
“Come with a job order. We will talk,” he summarily dismisses all interest in ethical recruitment. He hastily adds, probably worried about losing any potential business, “Sri Lankan men you don’t pay anything. Women you pay 3000 dollars.”
That’s the refrain you hear over and over again. ‘Men free, women you pay.’ What it translates to is men who wish to migrate pay huge fees throughout the recruitment cycle. So the employer pays nothing or pays a nominal amount.
