Govt conspicuously fails to protect the migrant workers’ interests

Though Bangladesh depends heavily on workers’ remittance-it is the second most important driver of the economy after the garments export-the fact of the matter that is to be accepted is that the government is yet to create a system which can protect the workers’ interests. There is no end to workers’ plight both when they are in Bangladesh as well as when they are in the foreign lands.
The agencies through which the workers go abroad often do not keep their promises. According to a report yesterday, numerous Bangladeshi workers are passing dreadful lives abroad because they were not given the promised jobs and wages. The report tells the story of a madrasa teacher with the degree equivalent of MA that he was promised that he would be given a job at Masjid al-Haram, the grand mosque of Mecca.
But when in Saudi Arabia he only discovered himself as a sweeper in Dammam and was getting half of the monthly Tk 30,000 that he used to get in Bangladesh as a madrasa teacher. This teacher was cheated by his recruiting agency named Al-Monir Enterprise Ltd (RL No 1742), this is plain and simple.
There are hundreds like the madrasa teacher whose plight starts when they are not given a money receipt against the payment of migration costs or any written document specifying their job. The reality is the recruitment agencies take much more than what they are officially permitted to charge from the workers.
Once these workers are in their destination lands, they discover themselves in jobs that are contrary to the promises and degrading for them as human beings with very low pay. Since the workers who go abroad do not have their organisation to protect their interest, it is the government itself, the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment to be precise, that has to stand beside the workers to protect their interests.
Ironically, the government in each month counts the remittance they send and feels happy when it increases, but does not think that it is its duty to serve the workers. On the other hand, while Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies admits the problem that the workers are cheated it shifts the blame on sub-agents for the unethical practice.