Private recruiters may get operation clearance

Alongside government channels, private recruiting agencies which have been barred since last year from sending workers to Malaysia may soon be allowed to resume operations, said Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain yesterday.

“The Malaysian government banned hiring workers from Bangladesh at least three times for anomalies of recruiting agents. Later, we approached them and they opened the market to hire our people under a transparent system,” he said.

The system or government channel was opened following the signing of a 2012 memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Dhaka and Kuala Lumpur, aiming to regulate the recruitment process curbing private recruiters' role.

It saw some 8,000 Bangladeshis in plantation jobs till date against an initial expectation of sending 50,000 in two years.

“Although we could not send many people through the existing process, we have ensured transparency...So, the influence of unscrupulous brokers and recruiting agents has come down significantly,” Mosharraf told a press conference in the ministry marking International Migrants Day today.

On UNHCR stating that at least 54,000 people from Bangladesh and Myanmar took the illegal, risky route to Malaysia over the Bay of Bengal this year, he said it was a matter of the home ministry.

Victims of cheating or trafficking by brokers or agents can file cases under the Overseas Employment and Migrants Act 2013. Of at least 158 cases filed this year, 116 have been settled, he added. Mosharraf stated of finding most allegations by female migrant workers and their families of the former being abused and harassed “incorrect”.

He denied that the 180 migrant workers in Najaf of Iraq were going through an ordeal for the last seven months with their Turkish employer failing to start the project. Claiming that at least 80 of them secured new jobs, he also vehemently lambasted a non-government organisation for allegedly provoking the workers to pressurise their Bangladeshi recruiting agents to bring them back.