Many female workers who went to Gulf countries from Bangladesh don’t get food from many oppressive employers and being forced to endure psychological, physical and sexual abuse. Human Rights Watch (HRW) report-2017 made the disclosure saying in many cases the abuses amounts to forced labor or trafficking.
The report is terribly shocking and an insult to our nation and we must say our government can’t keep blind eyes to such abuse and must deal the cases urgently to protect our women from inhuman treatment. It looks life modern day slavery.
HRW report said over 100,000 women migrated overseas, mostly to Saudi Arabia in 2017 for work as domestic help and many of them are reportedly being subjected to inhuman treatment.
It is true that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries have taken some preventive measures but victims can’t report such abuses from indoor confinement in the first place and the system is lengthy and also abusive for victims to get justice. So whoever can break out of the confinement take refuge to temporary shelters that Bangladesh embassy has opened at Jeddah and Riyadh before they were sent home back. Over 1000 such victims came back to Bangladesh in May this year and also frequently arriving and their stories were terribly shocking when they narrated their ordeals including withholding payment, physical abuse and even attempts in some cases to kill them pouring petrol on the body. There are many more such unfortunate women in the pipeline but our manpower agents are also sending women to these countries in absence of ban on it.
Brutalities on our women are not unknown and yet our government is encouraging sending women knowing they are abused. The government must show its responsibility for our women workers abroad. We should find jobs for women workers within the country. It is a shame that our women in any case are being used abroad as sex workers.
