A single viral video has exposed a deep-seated crisis at Sri Lanka’s international airport, revealing a clandestine war between citizen freedoms and bureaucratic overreach where your valid passport and visa may not be enough to guarantee your departure, creating a legal labyrinth that disproportionately targets women and challenges constitutional rights.
Remittances and the Female Workforce
The fundamental question of who possesses the legitimate authority to prevent a citizen from boarding an international flight has erupted into a fierce national controversy in Sri Lanka. This complex issue strikes at the core of individual liberties, state control, and economic survival for a nation heavily reliant on remittances from its overseas workforce. These financial inflows, the main source of foreign exchange for Sri Lanka, are significantly bolstered by the domestic service sector, an industry overwhelmingly comprised of female workers. The precarious journey these women undertake, particularly when traveling on tourist visas, was thrust into the harsh spotlight of social media through a widely disseminated video. The footage captured the distressing moment a woman was prevented from traveling by an official from the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment, her plans to go abroad for a trip abruptly halted at the airport departure gate. This incident has ignited a furious debate, forcing a public examination of the powers, legal boundaries, and ethical implications of state intervention in the right to travel.
‘No one is stopping them from going abroad on visit visas’
The official stance from the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment is one of paternalistic protection. Gamini Senarath Yapa, the Acting Additional Director General, has sought to contextualize the viral video, stating it is an old recording and does not reflect a policy of obstructing genuine tourism. He emphatically stated, “There is no obstacle to anyone going on a visit visa, if you are going on a proper visit visa. The problem is if you are going to work using a visit visa.” He elaborates that the bureau’s primary motivation is preventative, born from the dire circumstances many Sri Lankans face after arriving in foreign nations on tourist visas with the undeclared intention of seeking work. The problem is particularly acute in countries like Oman and the UAE, where vulnerable workers, often lacking the protections of formal employment contracts, find themselves in difficult situations and are forced to seek refuge and assistance from Sri Lankan embassies. Yapa frames the bureau’s actions as a fulfillment of its legal and moral duty to provide correct guidance and prevent such humanitarian crises, suggesting that questioning only occurs when there are reasonable grounds to suspect the tourist visa is being used as a facade for unauthorized employment.
This practice, however, exists within a darker context. The channel of tourist visas has been exploited by sophisticated human trafficking networks to lure Sri Lankans into cyber slavery camps in countries like Cambodia and Myanmar, where individuals are forced to work under duress in online scam operations. Furthermore, it is a widely recognized, if informally acknowledged, practice for many citizens to use tourist visas as a pathway to seek employment in destinations like Dubai, Oman, and Singapore, effectively circumventing the official and more cumbersome process for obtaining a foreign employment visa. This grey area creates a formidable challenge for authorities, forcing them to walk a fine line between preventing exploitation and infringing upon individual rights.
Can a tourist visa be questioned?
The central, and most contentious, legal question remains unresolved: does the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment possess the statutory authority to interrogate and, ultimately, turn back a Sri Lankan citizen who holds a perfectly valid passport and a legally obtained tourist visa from a foreign government? The bureau’s own leadership offers a legally ambiguous answer. Gamini Senarath Yapa’s response suggests the bureau operates on a practical interpretation of its mandate, leaving the definitive legal interpretation to the courts. He presented it as a matter of national duty, implying that the state cannot idly stand by while its citizens potentially walk into harm’s way, even if it means operating in a legal grey zone at the airport.
Who can turn you back at the airport?
This position is vehemently contested by legal experts specializing in human rights and immigration law. Lawyer Lakshan Dias provided a comprehensive and sharply critical legal analysis in a public forum, directly addressing the question of “Who can turn you away at the airport?” His argument systematically deconstructs the bureau’s claimed authority.
Who should prove that you are going for a job?
Dias firmly asserts that the bureau’s powers, as defined by the SLBFE Act of 2009 and its amendments, are specifically limited to regulating individuals who are proceeding abroad for employment. He introduces a crucial legal distinction that is often lost in the public discourse: the difference between traveling for a pre-arranged job and traveling to seek employment. The former falls under the bureau’s purview, while the latter, he argues, does not. He states that if a passenger possesses a return ticket and presents themselves as a tourist, the bureau has no legal grounds to prevent their travel.
A cornerstone of Dias’s argument is the principle of the burden of proof. He contends that the legal onus rests entirely on the bureau to demonstrate that an individual is traveling for work. The citizen is not legally obligated to prove their innocence or the genuineness of their tourist intentions. “Those who accuse you like that should do it,” he argues. The practice of selectively questioning passengers based on their gender, destination, socioeconomic status, or attire constitutes, in his view, a gross violation of the fundamental rights to privacy, equality, and freedom of movement enshrined in the Sri Lankan constitution.
If you are going on a trip,
His advice for travelers is practical and empowering: always carry documentation that supports your claim of being a tourist. This includes a return ticket, confirmed hotel reservation details, and the contact information of relatives or friends you may be visiting. This preparation creates a robust defense against arbitrary questioning and strengthens one’s legal position. He states, “If you are with a friend or relative, you have to give your airline the details of their whereabouts and phone numbers, have them ready, and if you have the hotel reservation document, no one can stop you.”
What the airline can do
Dias provides crucial clarity on the hierarchy of authority at the airport. He explains that the primary entity with the sovereign power to prevent a citizen from leaving the country is the Department of Immigration and Emigration. Their grounds for doing so are specific and legally defined: possession of an invalid passport, absence of a required visa for the destination country, provision of false information, an active travel ban imposed by a Sri Lankan court, or if the individual is a suspect in a case and a court or the police have requested their detention.
Separately, airlines reserve the right to deny boarding to any passenger if they have reasonable cause to believe that the passenger will be denied entry upon arrival at the destination. This is a commercial risk mitigation measure for the airlines, as they are typically fined and responsible for transporting the passenger back. A common reason for an airline to deny boarding is the lack of a return ticket, which is often a red flag for immigration officials at the arrival destination.
What the bureau can do
“What the bureau can do,” Dias clarifies, “is deport me only if they prove that I am going for a job.” He vehemently argues that the bureau has no power to conduct wide-ranging checks on all departing passengers. “They cannot check or question people going abroad. If they do that, they should do it to everyone, they cannot ask them selectively… They should also check people wearing ties, then it is fair.” He asserts that there is no law requiring every person at the airport to obtain the bureau’s approval to travel.
For those who are wrongfully turned back, he recommends a clear course of action: file a written complaint with the Civil Aviation Authority, submit a written objection to the bureau officer on duty, and use that documentation to lodge a complaint with the Human Rights Commission or pursue legal action.
‘Are you coming with a seal on your forehead?’
“According to the 2009 Act, you can only be seen if you are going to work abroad,” Dias told BBC Sinhala. “Can every tourist leaving the country be checked like that? How can you do that? Are you going on a trip or a job?” He revealed that he himself has objected to such checks when traveling abroad, challenging their legal basis.
An opportunity only available to men
Embedded within this complex framework is a systemic and profound gender inequality that disproportionately impacts female travelers. Sri Lankan law mandates that any woman seeking to go abroad for employment must first obtain a family background certificate from the Foreign Employment Bureau. This requirement creates an impossible situation for women who travel on a tourist visa with the hope of securing employment after arrival.
While a male citizen can, in theory, travel to a country like Dubai on a tourist visa, find a job, and then regularize his status by registering with the Sri Lankan mission abroad, a woman is legally blocked from this pathway. She cannot register or gain legal recognition for her employment without the pre-approved family background report, a document she cannot obtain without declaring her intent to work before she even leaves Sri Lanka. A bureau official acknowledged this disparity, stating, “If someone, especially a male, goes and gets such a job, we have given them the opportunity to be included in the bureau’s database through our mission. But if a woman goes there for the first time and does that, there is no possibility.”
‘Inequality and a violation of the constitution’
Lakshan Dias has launched direct legal challenges against this gender-based discrimination, arguing that it constitutes unconstitutional inequality. He has filed fundamental rights cases in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, contesting the rationale behind imposing these restrictions solely on women. His litigation also challenges other discriminatory practices, such as the requirement for women from plantation areas to obtain permission from an estate superintendent before traveling for work. He contends these laws are archaic, paternalistic, and clear violations of the constitutional guarantee of equal rights. For any woman stopped at the airport, this legal context is not abstract; it is the very framework that either enables or restricts her freedom based solely on her gender.
Powers of the Immigration and Emigration Department
The power dynamic at the airport is therefore a tense interplay of multiple actors. The Foreign Employment Bureau operates under its directive to regulate migrant labor, a goal that often clashes with its methods. The Department of Immigration and Emigration holds the ultimate legal authority to control exit based on specific, established criteria. The airlines function as commercial entities, making decisions based on risk management. For the traveler, navigating this trifecta can be an intimidating experience. The core of this escalating national issue is the delicate balance between individual freedoms and the state’s duty to protect. While the government has a legitimate interest in safeguarding its citizens from trafficking and exploitation, the methods must be grounded in the rule of law, applied equally, and respect the constitutional rights of every citizen. The question of who can turn you back at the airport is a litmus test for democracy, gender justice, and the fundamental human right to cross borders.
