Af24

“You know they are too anxious for overseas now,” says a woman at Newsite in Waterloo.

The adult woman was referring to the many young girls and boys now who are wishing to travel overseas to seek greener pastures.

She was discussing with a man, who happens to be a customer and someone she knows as a neighbor, about the issue of young people wanting to leave their country for other countries in Europe or Asia.

Asia is becoming a hotspot for immigrants from Sierra Leone who are on the look out for jobs – – menial jobs or domestic jobs for a living.

Though the money these servants are paid as monthly allowances are too meagre for doing some very hard labour jobs, young people are still ambitious to travel to countries like: Qatar, Dubai, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia in Asia and Turkey in Eastern Europe.

However, most are not lucky when they reach there.

There have been reported cases of Sierra Leoneans who are stranged while in Asia.

The agents who get to promise them better jobs  would usually turn off their wishes, thus abandoning them on the streets.

One of the conversations on Whatsapp by an emigrant in Lebanon explains the dim situation which Sierra Leoneans are facing while working in Asia.

“I don’t work now. We are on our own,” said a migrant worker in Lebanon.

The Sierra Leonean migrant says working in Lebanon is very tough for her since travelled there.

She said she is paid only as domestic worker a mere salary which was Le 2m ( something which is an equivalent of about $100).

“When we come here, most of us had it tough with our bosses or employees. So we had to abandon the places we were working as cleaners. We changed cleaning jobs from place to place and later on we thought we had to be on our own,” she said.

It means for the Sierra Leonean workers that there are more risks than a happier work life in working in Asian countries especially in Lebanon which is also one of the poorest countries in the world just like Sierra Leone.

“Our children don’t listen to advice these days, they are very anxious to go to oversea,” says the adult woman who also shares the belief that working in overseas in countries like Lebanon might have so many risks.