Aspirant female migrants must be made aware of challenges: speakers
Women must be made aware of the challenges tied to migration, so that they consider those and prepare themselves well before setting foot in a foreign land, speakers yesterday said at a seminar on migration policy.
The reasons behind female domestic workers coming back are often language barriers, food and home sickness, said Nurul Islam, director of the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training, at the programme organised by the Institute of Informatics and Development in collaboration with Bangladesh Nari Sramik Kendra at Probashi Kalyan Bhaban.
Separate budgetary allocation for dissemination of information and training are necessary to avert such cases of failed migration.
Moreover, opportunities for skills development should be created to divert the flow of female migration from the Middle East to other destinations where they would get decent jobs -- like that of a caregiver or garment worker -- with better pay and safe work environment, speakers said at the seminar titled “Gender responsive budget to empower women migrants”.
In the last one year, nearly 2,000 female migrant domestic workers returned from the Middle East. Most of them returned from Saudi Arabia and received emergency support from Brac’s migration programme.
From the experience of assisting female returnees, Shariful Hasan, head of Brac’s migration programme, said that around 10,000 women migrants had returned in the last four years from the Middle East with complaints of abuse and torture.
Representatives of all stakeholders were present at yesterday’s event to discuss how gender responsive budget could protect them.
In the budget for fiscal 2019-20, Tk 591 crore has been allocated for the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry.
Ahmed Munirus Saleheen, additional secretary to the ministry, assured that money would not be an issue if the ministry could come up with programmes to address the issues that female migrant workers face.
Speaking as special guest, Rownaq Jahan, secretary to the ministry, said that Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies has agreed to open local offices and make a list of brokers engaged in the migration process to stop irregularities.
Infrastructure has been built even at the local level to train aspirant migrants. Now the ministry has to spend on improving governance of the training centres and training module to ensure safe and easy migration.
Budget allocation should also be in proportion to need, said Syeed Ahamed, CEO of IID. For example, most domestic workers were going to Saudi Arabia and also facing abuse, so more money should be spent on developing a mechanism to safeguard them, he said.
A database of migrant workers and those who are returning should also be created immediately to help make need-based plans and implement them, speakers said.
Many developments regarding migration have happened over the years as more and more people flew out of the country for making a living, but still there are issues completely untouched -- rehabilitation and reintegration of the returnees.
NGOs, development partners and the government can work together to fill the gaps and bring about significant changes in the migration scenario, Rownaq Jahan said.
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