President Ranil Wickremesinghe has ordered to send special investigation teams to 18 countries to nab smugglers who employ Sri Lankan women in prostitution by sending them to Middle Eastern countries including Oman as expatriate workers.

This special operation has been handed over to the National Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force set up under the Ministry of Defence.

The objective of this operation is to identify the agents, embassy officials, foreign employment bureau officials and immigration officials involved in this smuggling and take steps to prevent human trafficking.

It has been revealed that 41 Sri Lankan women are already being held in a safe house in Oman without any employment opportunities and that nine of them are suffering from mental illnesses.

The first mission of the special team is to visit Oman to meet this group of helpless women and find the smugglers who had sent them to that country.

This is the first special operation undertaken by the National Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force.

A team of officials representing all sectors including State Intelligence Service and Immigration and Emigration Department has been instructed to be dispatched for this purpose.

This Task Force was under the Ministry of Justice for 10 years and was placed under the purview of the Ministry of Defence in 2021 with a special approval.

It has now been revealed that a large number of Sri Lankans who went to Middle Eastern countries as employees and were abused by their employers are still staying in those countries.

Source - Aruna