The government has taken various initiatives to train and protect the migrant workers of the country.
The initiatives will—reduce dependency on broker, confirm migrant workers visa, sending through agencies directly and others.
Through digitalisation, the initiatives will also ensure migrant workers’ physical and financial security in the country.
Additional secretary of Ministry of Home Affairs Abu Bakr Siddique told Bangladesh post, “At present labour migration from the country has increased by three-fold. With this foreign remittance has also increased by eight times. As a result, the government is very much concerned about the country’s migrant workers.”
“To ensure service security, visa procedure, and to export skilled manpower in foreign countries, the government is working relentlessly. The government is also working to prohibit sexual harassment of the country’s women workers who are abroad,” he added.
“Earlier, unskilled manpower (both man and women) were exported from the country, but now under the initiative, they will be trained before being sent to any country. The government is also working to ensure transparency in exporting workers to foreign countries,” he further added.
Drawing the example of Maldives, the secretary said, it takes Tk 80,000 to go to Maldives from the country but the brokers took three times the amount from people. However, the government is now very much concern about this.
“If any country’s worker seeks government’s assistance, they will get help in accordance. In the meantime, a good number of migrant workers are facilitated with this service,” the secretary added.
As per the initiative, law enforcement agencies are working to bring the brokers who fraud with the country’s people in the name of sending them abroad.
Deputy inspector general (DIG) of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Md Shah Alam told Bangladesh Post, “Efforts are continuing to solve the problems of the country’s women workers who went abroad with the help of brokers.”
Referring to recent problems he said based on two women workers who have returned to the country, “Tk 3 lakh were rescued and returned to Sharmin (pseudonym) in Rangpur while Tk 2 lakh was returned to Narsingdi's Sumaiya (pseudonym).”
It was learned that after the independence of the country, immigration has started since 1976.
At present, more than 10 million people of the country are now working in more than 100 countries.
The percentage of women workers immigration from 1990-2000 was one percent. But after changing the women migration procedure of the country, the rate jumped to five percent in 2009.
Bangladesh has been ranked as seventh in the world as a foreign exchange earner in 2013. Migrant women workers send 90 percent of their earnings to the country, and their percentage is quite low in comparison with the male workers.
According to data from the Ministry of Migrant Welfare and Overseas Employment, about one lakh women workers are currently working
Abroad. In 23 years, only 1 lakh 21 thousand 523 women workers migrated abroad. The women of this country are more engaged as semi-skilled workers.
According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), migration of women workers has increased every year, starting from the age 25 to 29. It has crossed 5 lakhs in 20 years. In the first two months of last year, 6,321 women domestic workers went to Saudi Arabia, but in the first two months of this year, 6 thousand 5 went.
