ILO concern over wage deprivation of migrants deserves consideration

NEWS report on Thursday, quoting a survey report, said that more than 75 percent of migrant workers are receiving the wages lower than what they were promised before leaving their home countries. They are now experiencing unforeseen deduction. The governments of the employer countries are very much responsible for these plights of migrant workers globally. Unfortunately, there are only a limited number of governments that have well-regulated systems facilitating the legal and transparent movement of low- or semi-skilled workers. This is a clear violation of the regulations of migrant workers rights. So, all countries, native and host, should take the rights of migrant workers under utmost consideration to resolve their plights. Otherwise, remittance inflow may sharply decline, posing serious threat to the balance of payment of the economies of immigrant dispatching countries. Bangladesh will, perhaps, be the most affected one.

A survey conducted by the World Bank and the International Labour Organisation in the Asia-Pacific and Gulf regions, said that about 14.5 percent of the respondents don’t receive wages on time. About 30 percent of the workers did not have a contract prior to departure and they experienced health-related problems. Of them, about one-in-five had serious work-related injuries. About 25 percent of the migrant workers don’t have any day-off in a week. The average number of weekly hours is 71, with sizeable gender disparities. The migrants’ sufferings are reaching peak as these countries are not following the ILO charter to protect the rights of migrant workers. Experts said that both the sending and receiving countries should follow the ILO Convention 181, which deals with the recruitment process of migrant workers to make it hassle-free.

Bangladeshi migrant workers are facing the similar predicaments abroad to maintain their livelihood. Officially there is a fixed ceiling on the costs of migration but it is more often violated than complied with. Migrant workers, who go abroad, particularly in the Middle East, have to pay huge money to meet the cost. Payments to brokers that verge on extortion and the exploitation of recruiting agencies make the life of migrant workers miserable even before they leave the country. Inadequate monitoring by the government compounds the problems. Besides, lack of adequate skills make the migrant workers work in low-paying wages. There is vast scope for upgrading their skills before they leave for employment abroad which will benefit both the workers and the country through higher income and remittance.

In this situation, governments of the man-power exporting countries especially Bangladesh should firstly introduce tight monitoring over recruitment agencies and secondly start G2G dealings for protecting the interest of migrant workers in foreign countries. And as preemptive measure, training prior to go abroad is a must to save these migrant workers.