The Press in Sri Lanka | Towards a great exodus?

(Kandy) The economic and political crisis that is shaking Sri Lanka threatens to deprive the country of its lifeblood: its young people and its highly qualified professionals.

Of the seven, all raise their hands.

Hospitality students in Kandy, the seven young men want to leave Sri Lanka, seeing no possibility of building a life there.

“Everything is bad here. “The cost of living is exorbitant, and we lack everything. »

Dressed to the nines, the students jostle to show their dismay.

“We have no future here. The salaries are derisory,” says Mr. GM Muben who, at 32, is the eldest in the group.

They want to go to Europe, the United States, Canada, to work in their field.

For their part, Sanduni Millagola, 25, and Monali Tharangi, 22, have chosen Japan.

The first to teach English and the second to study fashion.

“We are afraid of not doing as well in life if we stay in Sri Lanka,” explains Sanduni on behalf of the duo they met in front of the school where they learn Japanese.

The desire for exile of these young people was born quite recently; the economic crisis in which the country is plunged has something to do with it.

Go, but not anywhere

At the Colombo Passport Office, when passing from The Pressin early November, traffic was smooth but heavy.

“I can’t find a job here,” said a 30-year-old man intercepted in line.

Target destination: Qatar, where he has already worked as a parcel deliverer.

Kumara Liyanage, 25, spent six months in the tiny emirate in 2015.

And there is no question that he will head back to Qatar.

“We were treated like slaves, we worked under a blazing sun, in suffocating heat… There is no question of me going back there,” he said, sitting on the ground sorting peppers in a market in the capital. Sri Lankan.

However, he wants to pack up, because “things will only get worse, and the politicians will keep stealing from us”.

First the young

This desire for exile is particularly high among millennials. More than three out of four young people (77.2%) aged 18 to 29 would like to leave their island, according to a survey published recently by the Center for Alternative Policies of Sri Lanka. Among those aged 30 and over, the temptation to emigrate is lower, at 45.4%.

Nationally, more than one out of two Sri Lankans is considering exile (56.8%), according to the opinion poll conducted from October 21 to 31.

Their destinations of choice are, first, East Asia (26.7%) and Europe (24.8%). North America attracts 14.2% of respondents.

In fact, in the first half of 2022, 140,701 Sri Lankans left to work abroad, compared to 30,757 for the same period the previous year.

“There is an emerging trend of outflow of skilled migrant workers,” says Belisha Weerarathe, head of research on migration and urbanization at the Sri Lanka Institute of Policy Studies.

“A poorly planned and excessive exodus of skilled workers would have a negative impact on Sri Lanka’s economic recovery efforts,” she argued in an interview with a Sri Lankan publication.

It could also affect employment in the agricultural sector, where there is already a labor shortage.

This is the case of Nipun Dilshan, 23 years old.

“I don’t want to become a farmer like my father,” he says, making his way through the rice fields of Baragedara, where sowing is underway.

Doctor seeks hospital

The plan to immigrate is a long-standing one in the case of D^r Burhan Hamza.

Once his medical studies were completed in Belarus, he would return to Sri Lanka in 2017, to obtain his license to practice, then lift the veils.

But he clung to his feet.

“It felt good to be home,” he recalls, sitting at his desk in a private clinic in an upscale neighborhood of Colombo.

Over time, he became disillusioned.

There were the Easter attacks of 2019 — he’s a Muslim, and Muslims were targeted with hate speech.

Then the economic crisis hit.

“Because of the shortage of fuel, I sometimes had to wait for the bus for an hour, to have to walk 15 or 16 km to get home after work,” says Dr.^r Hamza.

He knows, however, that he is one of the privileged.

The doctor specializing in respiratory diseases sees himself practicing in the United States, the United Kingdom or even in Canada – “not Quebec, because you have to speak French”, he specifies.

Australian dreams

For a professional like the D^r Hamza, a relocation abroad is easier to imagine than for a young woman from a poor background like Dhayani, 19, who dreams of Australia and its kangaroos.

“I want to go there with my three sisters and my brother… you know, it’s very difficult here,” she explains shyly in the alley leading to the family’s shack in a slum near Nuwara Eliya.

This report was produced with the financial support of the Fonds québécois en journalisme international.