The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism has asked Sri Lankans not to travel abroad on tourist visas in search of work, saying a significant number who did so are now in serious difficulty.
In a statement reported by Hiru News, the ministry said many Sri Lankans had left the country on tourist visas on the strength of promises made by various parties that jobs awaited them in countries including Malaysia, Dubai and Oman. Those people are now facing severe hardship.
What the ministry is asking
The ministry’s instruction is procedural and specific: anyone leaving Sri Lanka for employment abroad should register properly with the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment and follow only the lawful process.
It framed this as a matter of securing the safety and the identity of Sri Lankans going overseas — the registration record is what allows a migrant worker to be traced and assisted once outside the country.
Why the distinction matters
A tourist visa does not confer the right to work. A worker who enters on one and takes a job is in breach of the host country’s immigration law from the first day, which places them outside the protection of any labour authority in that country and outside the consular mechanisms Sri Lanka can normally invoke on a registered worker’s behalf.
It also removes the Bureau’s record of where the person went and for whom they are working — the practical reason the ministry ties safety to registration.
Not reported
The ministry’s statement, as filed, does not say how many Sri Lankans are affected, what kind of difficulty they are in, or whether any are stranded, detained or unpaid. It does not name the parties making the job promises or say whether any are licensed recruitment agencies. It gives no date range for the cases, no indication of whether the number is rising, and no account of what assistance the government is providing to those already abroad. Nor does it say whether any prosecution or investigation has been opened into the recruiters.
On sourcing: this report rests on a single verified source, translated from Hiru’s Sinhala filing. The ministry statement itself was not reached directly, and Ada Derana — which commonly carries ministry releases of this kind — has been returning HTTP 403 to this desk for several weeks.
