The New Nation - Internet Edition

More than 150 workers were sent back from Kuwait yesterday. On the day before a total of 16 workers from Kuwait and 134 others from Saudi Aribia were deported. Another 350 Bangladeshi workers await deportation from Kuwait for their alleged involvement in an agitation demanding pay hike in Kuwait City. Kuwait authorities brought charges of instigating violence against the workers. Deportees from Saudi Arabia were reportedly victims of deception by recruiting agents and were in custody of law enforcing agencies.

The Kuwait government has meanwhile decided to increase the minimum pay of the foreign workers to 40 Dinars (about Tk 10,000) and made it obligatory for the employers to ward off further trouble. According to media reports, employers in some cases used to pay the workers at the rate of 8 Dinars (Tk 2,000) per month, which was not enough even to meet the bare necessities of a single worker.

Due to shady deals of a section of Bangladeshi manpower exporters, the workers are very often deprived of the minimum wages, let alone decent payments. It is due to sub-standard living condition of a section of the workers and efforts of some to earn extra money, some of the expatriate workers also resort to different odd jobs that were hurting interests of locals and inviting trouble. If the workers were given even minimum wages according to rules of the host country, they might not have gone for violence risking their jobs.

Expatriate workers are now the highest source of foreign exchange for Bangladesh. Violent agitation of the workers in different countries poses a threat to the job market as a whole. Bangladesh must gear up diplomatic efforts to protect the interests of the workers and retain the job market. Bangladeshi missions abroad should regularly monitor the service conditions of the expatriate workers and give them support when and where necessary. If the mission officials had been doing their duties all along such unwarranted developments could have been avoided. The missions officials must see that the wages really reach the hands of the workers. The dishonest section of the manpower exporters has gained much at the cost of the workers. They should now behave responsibly. They must not forget that what is at stake are not just the jobs of some individuals, the interest of the national economy is also under serious threat.

The problem of deception of Bangladeshi job seekers abroad can be solved only through systematic measures. The dishonest ones among the manpower agents who commit wrongs in sending people abroad without assured jobs or without valid travel documents are based in Bangladesh and the irregularities in manpower business can be tackled by taking the offenders to task. It would not be a herculean task to identify the perpetrators of the crime and punish them.

Spot investigation of problems faced by expatriate Bangladeshis should normally be dealt with by the Bangladesh missions abroad. People have started raising the question as to what the Bangladesh mission in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were doing before situation went to the boiling point in these friendly countries. The missions there could have no bigger responsibility than monitoring the situation of the job workers. Such monitoring is necessary also for those in South-East Asia and Europe.

There are many complaints against a section of manpower recruiting agencies. This section of agents promises the recruits higher pay to justify the collection of service charge at higher rates. They assure attractive service conditions in healthy environments, but many recruits end up in lowly paid and hazardous jobs.

Manpower export accounts for about seven billion US dollars in foreign exchange a year, which is second only to earnings coming from garment exports. The sad plight of the overseas job workers who fall victims to deception, and the lazy response by the relevant agencies and the overseas mission is thus entirely unacceptable and should be addressed speedily. Bangladesh Ambassadors in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait should be asked to come back to explain their performance vis-a-vis the present situation which definitely did not develop in a day.