THE suspension of labour migration from Bangladesh to more than a dozen destination countries for up to five years for irregularities in the migration process and a number of other reasons warrants special attention of the authorities. Labour migration to at least 13 destinations — Oman, Bahrain, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Malaysia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Romania, Brunei, Mauritius, Italy and the Maldives — is, as the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training says, suspended by the authorities of destination countries. Bangladesh’s labour migration is now mostly dependent on a single country, Saudi Arabia, that recruits mostly unskilled and semi-skilled workers. So far, 6,98,558 people have migrated from Bangladesh in 2024. Of them, 3,74,383, or 53 per cent, have gone to Saudi Arabia alone. Mauritius and Romania have, as officials say, almost stopped recruiting workers from Bangladesh after Bangladeshis, violating rules, left the company that hired them and shifted to other companies or migrated to other countries. Another destination country, Bahrain, has also stopped taking Bangladeshi workers, after an image crisis of Bangladeshi workers there. Malaysia suspended recruiting Bangladeshis for more than four years because of irregularities in the migration process on both sides while the United Arab Emirates have shut its door since a group of Bangladeshis staged a demonstration in August supporting the student protests in Bangladesh.
Irregularities such as calling visas issued by fake companies, syndicated market manipulation and high migration costs, forced labour, joblessness, unpaid or underpaid work and undocumented migrants have beset the processes. As a result, many migrants who manage to go to destination countries suffer and they are eventually compelled to leave. A report of the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit finds that an astounding 97 per cent of migrant workers who returned home untimely after 2020 were compelled to leave their destination countries. When talks on migrants’ grievances centre on abuse, torture, wage theft, working conditions and other violations of labour and rights in destination countries, the deception that aspiring migrants face at the very beginning of the migration process is often overlooked. It is the false promises of well-paid jobs that lure aspiring migrants to pay three-to-four times the official migration cost. The government, moreover, appears to be happy about the headcount of migrants while it fails miserably to ensure quality migration and to send skilled workers abroad. Only 8 per cent of the workers that Bangladesh sent abroad were skilled or semi-skilled, as a 2020 report of the International Organisation for Migration says. All this suggests that the government has much to do to facilitate labour migration.
The government should, therefore, rearrange migration governance and management to establish discipline in the sector. The government should take initiatives to persuade destination countries to reopen their markets. The government should also address all irregularities that have led to the situation. The government should ensure migrants’ rights in destination countries and arrange for skills training for migration seekers.
