A sharp decline in women鈥檚 migration in 2023 raises a few issues left unattended for long. Female migration from Bangladesh has declined by 42 per cent in two years, as Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training figures say. The number declined from 105,466 in 2022 to 76,108 in 2023 and 61,158 in 2024. A lack of safe migration practices, high migration cost, an inadequate grievance mechanism, support for women migrants in destination countries and a host of work-related issues have caused the decline. When reports of women migrants facing abuse, torture and exploitation in destination countries come aplenty, with many returning home empty-handed and traumatised, the authorities appear not to have put any grievance mechanism in place to address safety issues. Women migrants are more vulnerable than male migrants as women are mostly employed in household services work and are required to live in the house of the employers. Without language and skills training, women migrants are easy to exploit and, once faced with exploitation and abuse, they find it difficult to seek help from missions abroad or other organisations.
About 35 per cent of female migrants who have returned, a government report says, have faced abuse in many forms, including slave-like working conditions. After investigating a few hundred such cases, the report identified 11 fundamental reasons, including physical and sexual abuse, inadequate food, work without leave and irregular salaries, Bangladeshi migrant women fled their workplace,. A Human Rights Watch report also paints a similar picture. The report says that domestic workers face a range of abuses, including overwork, forced confinement, non-payment of wages, food deprivation and psychological, physical and sexual abuse while the authorities have failed to hold their employers accountable for such crimes. Sector insiders also observe that a lack of skills and language training is a major reason for the decline in women鈥檚 migration and unskilled Bangladeshi women workers fail to compete with workers from other source countries. Moreover, the authorities have failed to explore new markets for aspiring female migrants. There is a huge job market for women professionals such as physicians, nurses, caregivers and others in many countries.
While the government should attend to all these issues that hold back women鈥檚 migration, it needs to ensure migrants鈥� safety before they send female labourers to other countries. Diplomatic missions in destination countries must also put an effective grievance mechanism in place to protect the interests of migrant workers. The authorities should, however, prioritise skills training and local employment of women as safe local employment is better than unsafe migration.