Rights of the migrants in our political agenda

Bangladeshi migrants played a remarkable role during the July revolution through their firm non-cooperation stance against the former government. Their omission in sending forth remittances played a significant role in galvanising mass efforts. Bangladeshi migrants in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) also carried out peaceful solidarity protests in multiple locations across the country to stand with student protesters in Bangladesh. For this, the Emirati authorities arbitrarily detained, convicted, and sentenced to long prison terms 57 Bangladeshi protesters too.

It is ironic that despite such contribution by the migrants, we do not see any political agenda in Bangladesh to ensure the rights of the migrants. Both Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami have announced their plans to reform the country. BNP announced 31-point reform proposal while Jamaat-e-Islami announced 41-point proposal. However, none of these proposals manifest strong political will to work for the migrants. This inattention by the major political parties in Bangladesh to the needs of the migrant workers is quite a disappointment.

Among many, four issues with relevant to the rights of the migrants must be included in the reform agenda in Bangladesh.

Migration and climate change: Bangladesh, particularly south and south-southwest of the country, is confronting severe challenges related to climate-induced migration, driven by escalating environmental crises including rising sea levels, salinity intrusion, and frequent extreme weather events. These climate crises are causing significant disruptions to local livelihoods, agricultural productivity, health, including mental health, and women's menstrual health, and overall community stability. As a result, many individuals and families are compelled to migrate from their traditional homes in search of safer and more sustainable living conditions. This has sometimes resulted in irregular migration to Gulf and European countries.

Employability of the returnee migrants: The returnee migrants face enormous challenges in terms of getting reintegrated into the local community and economy. On returning to the homeland, the returnee migrants face difficulties in finding employment or start a business despite requiring skills and expertise. Based on the observations, it is relatively apparent that there is lack of clear framework, mechanism, infrastructure, and policy to effectively use the skills and expertise of the returnee migrants.

Human rights of the healthcare migrants: There are many critical human rights issues of Bangladeshi healthcare workers who went to the United Kingdom (UK) under the Health and Care (HC) worker visa scheme. Despite the demands of Bangladeshi healthcare workers in the UK, various reports and discussions reveal that Bangladeshi healthcare workers are facing numerous human rights violations by health and care companies in the UK. The violations include but are not limited to forced payment of higher recruitment fees and worse conditions for lower pay, restrictions on the freedom of movement, excessive workload, threats and intimidation from management, and systematic wage theft. These are all in breach of international fair recruitment policies.

Mental health issue of the women garment-workers: The mental health of women garment workers in Bangladesh is overlooked. These workers, many of whom are internal migrants, face significant challenges due to precarious working conditions, including exceedingly long hours, and limited access to mental health support.

Besides broad-based reform agendas, specific local efforts are also needed to bring in sustainable changes to the status quo. Indeed, the grassroots organisations in Bangladesh can take humanitarian actions to address migrants' rights. For instance, Moulovibari Research and Partnership Hub (MoRPH), a grassroots organisation in Bangladesh, in partnership with the University of Bedfordshire in the UK has applied for a networking grant to the UK government so that further research and humanitarian actions can be taken to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change, especially on the health and wellbeing of the migrants.

In partnership with the same university, MoRPH is also set to conduct research on the human rights issues of Bangladeshi healthcare workers in the UK. In order to engage the returnee migrants back into rural entrepreneurship, MoRPH is trying to explore various avenues. As part of its next course of actions, MoRPH will liaise with grassroots representatives of different political parties and local government institutions in Bangladesh so that migrant rights are mentioned in the political manifestos and agendas of the political parties and development of targeted policy and strategic interventions are designed to address the needs of the migrants. Other grassroots organizations in Bangladesh may follow MoRPH.

The writer is Senior Research Fellow, Moulovibari Research and Partnership Hub (MoRPH), Tangail, Bangladesh.