Struggling to stay afloat
Lipi Akter started processing her migration to Saudi Arabia in early March, expecting financial solvency there will help her raise her children back home.
She had earlier spent two years in the Gulf country as a domestic worker and returned home in August last year.
But her second attempt saw hardly any progress in about two months, thanks to a pause in human resource export over the novel coronavirus outbreak in the country. The delay has put her into further economic hardship, as she already was in debt.
"I did not see this coming," said Lipi (37), a mother of three.
As Bangladesh went on shutdown from March 26 to contain coronavirus infections, many returnee female migrant workers found themselves without income opportunities.
This came as an added challenge to their lives, as many female migrant workers rely on their own income. According to the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit, of around 97,430 female workers went abroad last year, 30 percent were either divorced or widows.
Lipi, who hails from Manikganj's Harirampur, said her husband Ismail, an electrician, seldom cared for her and their three children. He married another woman and now lives with the second wife in the capital.
As a result, she has to meet educational expenses of one of her two daughters, alongside meeting daily expenses and house rent.
She said she borrowed about Tk 60,000 from two local NGOs in Harirampur after returning home, in order to support the family.
"I thought I would run the family for a few months and then depart to Saudi Arabia," she added.
Lipi married off her elder daughter in 2017 while she also has a school dropout son aged 14.
Sheikh Rumana, general secretary of Bangladeshi Ovibashi Mohila Sramik Association (BOMSA), said they are in contact with several returnee female migrant workers in Manikganj, Dhaka, Sylhet and Habiganj districts who are facing hardship.
Rumana said her organisation recently prepared two separate lists comprising about 600 returnee female migrant workers of different districts who are in need of financial support.
Female migrant workers have contributed to the country's economy through sending remittance. Now, no one is there to look after them, Rumana said.
One such returnee is Dahlia Akhter of Jatrabari. She returned from Saudi Arabia in August, 2019 after allegedly being tortured by her Saudi employer.
Coming back to home, Dahlia was not accepted well by her husband.
She along with five other Saudi returnee females had been running a catering service in Dhaka's Dakkhinkhan area to be self-dependent.
Dahlia said they had to close the catering service on March 23 because the offices and marketplaces where they were supplying food items have shut down after the outbreak.
She said the situation has put her and other women in economic hardship, as they do not have alternative income opportunities.
Many female migrant workers who returned home in the past two to three years had been involved in small scale economic activities, said Shariful Hasan, head of Brac Migration Programme.
Now, they are facing an economic downturn due to the shutdown, said Shariful.
The Brac official said at least 10,000 female migrant workers have returned home from different countries, mostly from Saudi Arabia, in the past four to five years.
Shariful also said female migrant workers including those returned home recently have contacted them over phone and narrated their sufferings.
"Many of them are running out of money," he added.
According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training, some 5.5 lakh female migrant workers went overseas between 2015 and 2019. Majority of them went to eight Middle East countries including Saudi Arabia.
Shoaib Ahmad Khan, director of Wage Earners' Welfare Board, said they usually support female migrant workers when they return home "unexpectedly".
Asked about government steps to bailout female migrant workers amid current economic downturn, he said the welfare board is preparing lists of those migrant workers who have returned home recently.
"You will know if there is any support initiative taken for them," he told this newspaper by phone.
The WEWB official said the expatriates' welfare ministry has allocated about Tk 7.75 crore for Bangladeshis who are facing food crisis aboard.
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