After what seemed like an interminable journey from London with a stop-over in Dubai, I finally arrived at Dhaka airport. As I traipsed to the baggage claim area, I was unceremoniously shoved out of the way by a Bangladeshi man who evidently wanted to get there first. Just as I was about to retort, I saw a horde of passengers rushing off the plane and scrambling towards me. I muttered something about people’s rudeness and moved out of the way. It is only when I reached the baggage carousel that I realized why everyone was in such a hurry. The conveyor belt was loaded with cardboard boxes marked “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”; they must have belonged to migrant workers who were returning home for the first time in years.
During my time in Bangladesh working on migration issues, I would learn that there are around 2.6 million Bangladeshi workers in Saudi Arabia, making the country the primary destination for labour migration from Bangladesh. It is also the most significant remittance-sending country with half of the total remittances (over $10 billion) sent to Bangladesh originating from Saudi Arabia. Overall, remittances sent by some 6.2 million overseas workers represent around 10% of Bangladesh’s gross domestic product. Yet, despite the significance of remittances for the country’s economy, labour migration from Bangladesh is still relatively poorly governed with migrants facing considerable challenges both at home and abroad.
I spoke to a worker recently rescued by SHISUK, a local NGO that provides assistance to victims of trafficking, who was approached by a middle man for a job as a sales person in Jordan. After he had paid $4600 to the agent, he was sent instead to Liberia where he stayed for 3 months without a job or an income. This story is not isolated despite the government’s efforts to facilitate labour migration and curb costs for workers by setting up a governmental recruitment agency[1] and a migrant welfare bank to provide loans to migrants for the purpose of recruitment costs.
One of the biggest challenges in Bangladesh is that many people are unable to reach recruitment agencies directly because they live in remote areas, where they can easily fall prey to unscrupulous middle men and end up in debt bondage. According to local civil society organisations, Bangladeshi workers are among those who pay the highest recruitment fees with many workers paying up to $5000, way above the official limit of $1200. Most workers go through middle men who make false promises about a job abroad and charge exorbitant fees. Some of them sell their land, house and other belongings or take out high interest loans to pay for recruitment costs thinking it a worthwhile investment that they will be able to make up for with the salary they have been promised. However, fraud is not uncommon and workers may find themselves working for a much lower salary than promised or worse, they may find that there is no job waiting for them at all.
