bdnews24.com :
Shoeb Hossain left Kishoreganj in pursuit of a better life in Saudi Arabia under the “free” visa scheme 10 years ago.For a while, the move seemed to be paying dividends as Shoeb made a good living from a small shop he ran in Riyadh.
But his world was turned upside down when police sent him to a deportation camp after a raid in October.
A few weeks later, he returned home empty-handed and dispirited. “I was on the way to my shop when they detained me. I couldn’t even get to my shop. I had goods worth Tk 4 million in the shop but there was nothing I could do to retrieve it. They only handed my phone back,” he told bdnews24.com.
According to the expratiate welfare desk at the Hazrat Shahjalal Internation Airport, Saudi Arabia-the biggest labour market for
Bangladesh-has deported 20,692 Bangladeshis in the first 10 months of 2019 alone.
And the labour wing of the Bangladesh consulate in Jeddah estimates that on average, 106 expatriates a day have been deported over the last 10 months.
Research organisations working on migration and expatriate welfare issues believe an economic recession has been driving the Middle-Eastern country’s efforts to increase the participation of Saudi nationals in the workforce.
Shoeb Hossain left Kishoreganj in pursuit of a better life in Saudi Arabia under the “free” visa scheme 10 years ago.For a while, the move seemed to be paying dividends as Shoeb made a good living from a small shop he ran in Riyadh.
But his world was turned upside down when police sent him to a deportation camp after a raid in October.
A few weeks later, he returned home empty-handed and dispirited. “I was on the way to my shop when they detained me. I couldn’t even get to my shop. I had goods worth Tk 4 million in the shop but there was nothing I could do to retrieve it. They only handed my phone back,” he told bdnews24.com.
According to the expratiate welfare desk at the Hazrat Shahjalal Internation Airport, Saudi Arabia-the biggest labour market for
Bangladesh-has deported 20,692 Bangladeshis in the first 10 months of 2019 alone.
And the labour wing of the Bangladesh consulate in Jeddah estimates that on average, 106 expatriates a day have been deported over the last 10 months.
Research organisations working on migration and expatriate welfare issues believe an economic recession has been driving the Middle-Eastern country’s efforts to increase the participation of Saudi nationals in the workforce.
