On 16th February 2017, Marial Kanthi migrated to Kuwait to work as a housemaid. When she migrated her daughter was 3 years old. Till 1995 he had regular contact with the family in Sri Lanka, however after that there was no communication at all.
Marial Kanthi’s husband, Edward approached Caritas Colombo-Seth Sarana and requested to find her wife. The request was passed on to Caritas Sri Lanka-SEDEC. At the time her husband only had the National Identity Card (NIC) number with him.
On 6th December 2016, Edward visited Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) with the Caritas Project Officer and while inquiring they found out that Marial has migrated through an irregular migration process and the SLBFE was unable to locate her whereabouts.
Afterwards, her passport number was searched and found from the Immigration Department.
Meanwhile it was told by her daughter that the communication between her mother and the family stopped due to a family dispute and even though she tried to contact her mother, she was unable to do so.
The husband had also given up on his wife as he thought that she was dead.
However, the daughter had a vague memory of talking to the mother when she was very small. The daughter got married recently and she claims she needs her mother more than ever before.
With her daughter Ruklanthi, we went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Consular division and logged a complaint on 19th April 2017.
Within a month the mother, Marial Kanthi has contacted the daughter.
The family will be re-united in December 2017 as Marial Kanthi will be returning to Sri Lanka after almost 23 years.