The authorities were yesterday finding it hard pressed to stop hundreds of Sri Lankans, mainly women attempting to illegally cross the Jordan border to Israeli in search of lucrative employment as caretakers in the Jewish state, a senior official said.
According to recent reports from the Jordanian capital, Amman an estimated 2,000 Sri Lankans are believed to have landed in Jordan on tourist and other easy access visas arranged by unscrupulous foreign job recruiting agents both licensed and otherwise with a promise to enter Israel to work as care givers, Senarath Yapa Deputy General Manager Training (DGMT) told the Sunday Observer.
There are persons using online platforms and other sources of media to lure unsuspecting victims for a safe journey to Israel in return for a large fee that could run up to some Rs. 200,000, he said.
In 2020, Sri Lanka and Israel reached an agreement with the Israeli Population Immigration and Border Authority to recruit some 25,000 female caregivers as a pilot project where the aspirants were trained by the SLFBE to meet the requirement of the Israeli authorities, Yapa said.
The Israelis are very sensitive of this particular job category the reason they are willing to pay something like Rs. 500,000 as a monthly wage to a Sri Lankan caregiver. Sending underqualified persons to this category through rogue channels would only go on to damage the sector altogether and therefore the danger and threat is very real, Yapa said.
It is now learnt that the guards on either side of the Jordan-Israel border has been strengthened and placed on to alert to thwart the border crossings by illegal workers, he said.
The border shared by both countries is some 482 kilometres and breaches are possible mostly after dusk, Yapa said.
In a recent letter to the Foreign Office in Colombo, the Sri Lankan Ambassador in Jordan highlighted this alarming trend of illegal migration.
In a related development, a group of 62 Sri Lankans were deported from Kuwait, this week for violation of visa and work regulations. The group included 60 women, many of who had dumped their original sponsors and opted to work illegally sometimes even as sex workers, according to officials.
The group was picked up by the Kuwaiti authorities from makeshift hostels, motels, they said.