Hard times abroad

More than half of the Bangladeshi migrants returning from abroad claim that they faced various types of harassments while abroad, including wage problems, police harassment, indecent behaviour from employers and problems in passport or visa renewal, a survey has revealed.
"Around 31 percent of female workers said they faced too much work; 28 percent faced physical and mental harassment while among male migrants only10 percent and four percent respectively faced the same problems,” according to the survey findings revealed at a meeting in the city yesterday.
The survey was conducted by the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS).
The draft findings of 'Returning Migrant Workers Profiling Survey' were carried out under “Promoting Decent Work through Improved Migration Policy and its Application in Bangladesh", a project under International Labour Organization (ILO).
Mostafiz Ahmed, a teacher of Jagannath University who is on the research and advisory team of BILS, shared these findings at a programme held at Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry's Conference room.
The findings were prepared on the basis of interviews of 1,200 returnee migrants from different destination countries taken at Dhaka and Chittagong international airports between November 20 last year and February 15 this year. Among the interviewees, 928 were male and 272 female. They were selected from Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna divisions. The researchers also took in-depth interviews of 85 returnees, both male and female.
The survey covered the reasons behind the migrants' return, their medium of migration, assistance from Bangladeshi missions abroad, skill training, future plans and some other issues.
Around 56.8 percent of  the returnees claim they faced various difficulties in their destination countries while 43.2 percent said they did not face any such difficulties.
More than 65 percent of both male and female returnees said they had to return due to difficulties as wage issues, passport or visa problems, job termination, unavailability of new jobs and mental or physical harassment, while only 15 percent said they returned due to personal problems.
The largest percentage of male returnees were from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, while females returned from Lebanon, Jordan and Oman. These countries are also among the top destinations from where the interviewees returned.
 The survey also found that 62 percent of all migrants, both male and female, went abroad by acquiring loans or selling their land; 80 percent went abroad through the help of middlemen and agencies while only five percent went through government channels or other means.
Only 37 percent of the returnees said they had received training before they left for their jobs while 17 percent received training after going abroad.
The discussants at the meeting raised some questions regarding the survey, including the sample size used, absence of specific details about claimed mental and physical harassment,  further information about whether the migrants had been able to recover the amount they had borrowed, how many of the interviews were legal migrants and how many were illegal, etc. They advised the researchers to analyse these factors elaborately.
 Expatriates' Welfare Ministry Additional Secretary Hazrat Ali chaired the programme. The ministry's Secretary Khondaker Showkat Hossain, BILS Secretary General Nazrul Islam Khan and ILO Chief Technical Advisor Nisha were among others who spoke at the event.