A Secretary of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Oman was arrested last week for his suspected involvement in a human trafficking racket.
Edirachchilage Kushan is alleged to have trafficked women from Sri Lanka, seeking foreign employment, into prostitution. The women would be sent tourist visas in Oman and then entrapped in sex trafficking.
Multiple Sri Lankan women who are currently held at the safe house operated by the Sri Lankan Embassy in Oman allege that the suspect made unwanted sexual advances towards them, and threatened them with a longer stay in Oman, without sending them back home.
The Government official has been accused of making sexual advances on women and also trying to lure some women for up to Rs 2.5 million into the sex trade in Oman.
According to COPA (the Committee on Public Accounts), complaints against Edirachchilage Kushan involving financial fraud and certificate fraud have been logged since February.
Six Sri Lankan recruiters are suspected to be involved.
SSP Samarakoon Banda, director of the Criminal Investigation Department’s human trafficking and human smuggling division confirmed the allegations about the man to a local broadcaster this week. Following a complaint by the Sri Lankan Bureau of Foreign Employment, he led a three-person team of investigators to Oman where they recorded statements from 45 women. Six of them had been recruited by female agents in Sri Lanka and fled from the homes of employers. Eight had been flown to Dubai and crossed the border overland into Oman after a few days.
WhatsApp video clips made by two other women have appeared on social media and mainstream media pleading for help to return home from Oman. Among them is a 22-year-old mother of one, who had left in March and is in tears imploring for help in Tamil. The other, also a young woman, is pleading in Tamil, the Daily Mirror reported.
Additional Auditor General. Mr P. L. K Perera asserts that the former chairman of the Foreign Employment Bureau had requested the Internal Audit Division investigate E. Kushan on 28th February 2022. The former chairman had included instructions to remove Mr Kushan from his post and to return him to Sri Lanka to prevent any possible hindrance with the investigation into allegations against Mr Kushan.
When matters came to light, Edirachchilage Kushan was suspended from service, and his diplomatic passport was revoked. Kushan has been remanded by Colombo Chief Magistrate Nandana Amerasinghe until 13th December.
Migrants from the island have often been found to be working under poor conditions across a number of countries in the Gulf region. During the Pandemic Migrant workers who were stranded in Jordan and looking to be repatriated to Sri Lanka were teargassed as they protested outside the Sri Lankan embassy in the country.
The latest trafficking-in-person report published in 2022 places Sri Lanka in Tier 2, in 2020 the US state department had received 'received isolated reports of government officials allegedly complicit in trafficking '.
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