Female overseas job seekers need capacity to fight abuses: Experts

The women seeking overseas jobs need to have skills and language proficiency so that they could protect themselves against various forms of abuses including non-payment of salaries, labour migration experts said yesterday.

Speaking at a consultation, they also demanded prompt government action to address complaints from migrants against employers or brokers.

The discussion was organised by Bangladesh Women Migrant Workers Association (BOMSA) at the expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministry.

According to the ministry, 1.18 lakh women went abroad, mostly to the Middle East, in 2016, which is over 15 percent of the total labour migration last year.

"It is surely a good sign, but the problem is we receive frequent allegations of abuses. It may be physical or sexual abuse and overwork or non-payment," said BOMSA Director Sumaiya Islam in her keynote presentation.

The women do not need to pay for migration, but the intermediaries are still charging them illegally, she said, and suggested legalising the middlemen to make them accountable.

Executive Director of Manusher Jonno Foundation Shaheen Anam said, "Some of the women...remain ill-prepared and don't have the capacity to negotiate."

So it is important that they have a certain level of education, job and language skills, and cultural orientation, she said.

Shaheen Anam also said the Bangladeshi embassies in the labour-receiving countries were not sufficiently staffed to handle thousands of workers, suggesting recruitments at the labour wings.

Shameem Ahmed Chowdhury Noman, joint secretary general of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA), said they often received complaints from the female workers that they were made to work in two to three houses, which became almost impossible for them.

As per the memorandum of understandings with the labour-receiving countries, the workers should be allowed to have a mobile phone, but the employers do not allow it, he said. "Sometimes the female workers are forced to return home."

Acknowledging that the one-month residential training for the would-be female migrants is not up to standard, Expatriates' Welfare Secretary Begum Shamsunnahar said they were trying to improve it.

Expatriates' Welfare Minister Nurul Islam said the government planned to establish more safe homes for the female migrants. It also has set up a call centre, Probash Bondhu, and anyone can call it to complain, he said.

"We will address the problems. If the problems are not solved, please come to me. My door is open," he said.

The minister said he asked the finance ministry for incentives to migrant workers for increasing remittances.

In response to a question, he said the present diplomatic stand-off between Qatar and some Arab countries would not affect the labour recruitment from Bangladesh because it was not war.

Catherine Cecil, team leader of PROKASH Project of British Council, Ali Haider Chowdhury, former leader of BAIRA, and SK Rumana, general secretary of BOMSA, also spoke.