The Covid cluster which started from Minuwangoda has now attacked the Katunayake area. There are many garment factories and many garment workers in this Katunayake – Awariwatta area. Several garment workers are already infected with the Covid 19 virus.
At the beginning of the Covid 19 expansion in the Katunayake Garment Zone, the government did not impose a quarantine curfew on the area. Although many said it was appropriate to impose a curfew in the area, some ignored it.
Although a curfew was imposed in some areas when 4-5 cases of Covid were reported, it did not happen in the Katunayake area due to fears that the government might disrupt factory operations.
Social activists in the free trade zone say that the health sector as well as others have treated the Katunayake free trade zone workers in a manner that highlights class divisions when they come across people infected with the Covid 19 virus among garment workers.
For example, on October 14, the Averywatta Police instructed all garment workers to come to Amandoluwa College for PCR tests. Everyone who went there, after being severely harassed, was told to name one of the two establishments and ask them to stay and the others to leave.
In this regard, Ms. Ashila Dandeniya of Stand Up Movement Lanka says that the expansion of Covid 19 is inevitable even in such a mobilization process.
She also points out that workers who are taken in for quarantine are subjected to the most harassment.
She says boarding children are taken out of buses to go to the boarding rooms and get ready in 5 minutes and two weeks to get dressed, and even there they are not informed where they are being taken to a quarantine center.
Covid points out that quarantine is the fault of the workers and that they are completely abused when they are taken into quarantine, blaming and harassing them.
She said the army was working to provide special facilities for quarantine, especially for senior officials in institutions, and for quarantine centers with less facilities for these employees, which would highlight the class gap.
A quarantine curfew has been imposed in the Katunayake police area from yesterday (15). However, the police stated that the employees of the free trade zone could show their identity cards and go to work. Meanwhile, workers in some of the factories in the Free Trade Zone are still being brought in from areas where the Gampaha Quarantine Curfew is in place.
Meanwhile, Attorney-at-Law Priyalal Sirisena has filed a writ petition in the Court of Appeal seeking an order directing the Minister of Health to formulate and implement correct quarantine criteria to control the corona epidemic and the violations of the rights of the garment worker as well as the general public.
The plight of garment workers, especially manpower workers in the garment industry, is particularly dire due to the Covid epidemic.
Attorney-at-Law Vidura Munasinghe says that Man Power employees have become another significant marginalized group of people who are currently being discriminated against.
“They are people who are employed by various parties through a third party on a daily basis on a daily basis. They work in one company one day, another in another, so there is no specific employer, so no one is responsible for these people, they are not mentioned anywhere, their rights are not mentioned anywhere, this Under Kovid then the question arises as to who is responsible for these people, ”he said.