Address overseas recruitment malpractices now
It is not every day that the minister of expatriates' welfare and overseas employment comes out with a frank admission that there are serious irregularities in the recruitment process that sends hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis to work in foreign labour markets annually. And because the steps to address these malpractices have generally not worked, we are witnessing more and more migrant workers ending up in foreign countries without valid documentation. The end result of such irregularities is not lost upon host countries and it has led to suspension of recruitment of Bangladeshis by some of the most important labour destinations like the UAE, and now ending up in deportation from countries like Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
A large portion of Bangladeshi workers are at the mercy of unscrupulous recruiting agents. Even in markets where our workers can enter free of cost, there are other issues that have not been addressed. For instance, the case of domestic workers going to KSA are supposed to be aged between 25-38, but there have been instances when 18-year-old girls or women as old as 55 have ended up there because the recruiting agency deliberately falsified information in the passport showing them to be younger or older than they actually are. One of the consequences of workers going abroad, either with falsified documentation or ending up in overseas labour markets as undocumented individuals, is the country earning a bad name. Foreign employers are increasingly viewing us as a country having little regard for the law and in the absence of serious moves at policy level to plug the loopholes in the system, our workers are steadily being edged out of the traditional labour markets of the Middle East and elsewhere. The problems associated with recruitment agencies have been thoroughly documented and it is the sheer lack of action at state level that has created this mess. No one is held accountable and a continued failure to gauge the implications of such inaction will result in falling inward remittance, which the country so badly needs to pay for its imports.
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