Death tolls of BD workers in Malaysia calls for safety at workplace

NEWS report said a total of 3,312 Bangladeshi migrant workers, mostly between 30 and 40 years age died in the last eight and a half years in Malaysia. This is a highly alarming news particularly when hard-work and hostile work environment were mainly blamed for the unfortunate death of our young workers in that country. The news broke out at a time when the governments of Bangladesh and Malaysia are working on a new recruitment plan to send 500,000 Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia and an agreement has already been signed in June last in this respect.
According to a vernacular daily, almost 20 percent of corpses coming from different countries every year are from Malaysia. Only in last year 510 Bangladeshi corpses arrived from there, the highest number so far, and in the past six months the number reached 259. The causes of deaths in almost all cases are accidents, strokes or illness at the workplace due to unhealthy environments, anxiety and extra-workload. Officials at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport said that the day is very rare when no Bangladeshi corpses come from Malaysia.
Surely, it is the Bangladesh government’s failure to generate enough jobs in the economy which is forcing our young people to seek jobs in other countries like Malaysia. Young people are in desperate need for jobs to overcome poverty and the success story of Malaysia and recruitment agents’ narrative of a prosperous life are alluring our job seekers to go to Malaysia. But if many of them were to die at the end instead of seeing the face of prosperity, it looks like a paradise lost. In fact, illusion and reality are different things and the news of so many deaths needs to be taken as a precaution so that such things can’t happen to our young people again coming back any more in body bags.
Those who go legally under contract with the Malaysian government should be treated honourably. They should be treated as guest workers.
We do not want any workers go illegally. But even the illegal workers deserve to be treated humanely before they are sent back.