Colombo – The Government of Sri Lanka with the support of IOM will launch a web-portal on "Migration, Health and Development" on Monday 19th December at the Ministry of Health auditorium in Colombo.

The website will act as an information hub for the public, policy makers, researchers and industry groups to better understand the health, social and economic impacts migration has on migrant flows, outbound labour migration, internal migration, inbound migration and the impacts on families and children left behind.

The web-portal will also contain technical fact sheets on the key findings of five research studies on migration health commissioned by the Inter-Ministerial Taskforce on Migration Health, in collaboration with IOM. These will appear in English, Singhalese and Tamil.

Health Minister Maihtreepla Sirisena, and Minister of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare Dilan Perera will attend the launch of the web-portal, which will be linked to the websites of their two ministries and IOM.

The website will also track Sri Lanka's progress on advancing the WHO Health of Migrant's Resolution and will contain all development milestones toward the establishment of a "National Migration Health Policy."

The launch is part of Sri Lanka's week-long celebration of International Migrants Day, which kicks off on the 18th of December with a major campaign to raise nationwide awareness of the contribution that migrant workers make to the nation.

The campaign, which will include a series of awareness-raising walks throughout the island will be led by the Ministry of Foreign Employment, Promotion and Welfare and will be launched by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

As part of the campaign, the Ministry of Health and IOM will distribute a series of posters and leaflets in Singhalese and Tamil to promote safe and healthy migration, informed choices for families in the migration process, and actions to mitigate health and social impacts for both the migrant workers and their families left behind.

The contribution migrant workers make to the Sri Lankan economy is enormous. An estimated 1.8 million Sri Lankans work abroad (10 per cent of the nation's population). The foreign employment sector is the highest foreign exchange earner for Sri Lanka with an annual remittance of over USD 4.116 billion in 2010. The garment and textiles sectors, comprising mainly internal migrants, generate USD 3.5 billion.

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For more information please contact: Richard Danziger, IOM Colombo, E-mail: rdanziger@iom.int or Kolitha Wickramage, E-mail: kwickramage@iom.int