Reza Mahmud :
More than three lakh Bangladeshi workers are suffering in Qatar on account of their new labour law banning the migrants to change the company. The Qatar government is yet to disclose the details of the law.
“Most of the Bangladeshi workers are facing crisis due to the new labour law. They are unable to accept better offer and thus suffer financially,” said, Shariful Islam, an Executive of Dynamic Syndicate, one of the leading international manpower recruiting agencies.
The sources said, the Bangladeshi workers firstly entered in Qatar and other middle eastern countries with lower wages due to their inexperience. After working some months there, they found that workers from other countries like Philippines, Pakistan, India and Nepal were getting better salaries than them. The workers then realised that they were competent to have better salaries. But in most of the cases, the recruiting companies did not increase their wages. In such conditions, the workers wanted to change their workplaces to have the desired wages. The migrant workers said that the workplace changing was a easy matter in Qatar. But the new law introduced in December 2016 made it very complex. The new law said, if any migrant wants to change his company, he needs to get new visa. But the employers said, the government is yet to disclose the details of the new law. In this situations, the workers cannot change their employers. But thousands of them need to change their workplaces as better options.
The Bangladesh embassy in Doha said, Qatar is the third largest labour market for the Bangladeshi manpower abroad.
According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), there are more than three lakh workers now working in Qatar. In 2015, one lakh 23 thousand and 965, and in 2016, one lakh 20 thousand and 382 workers went to the country. Nearly 10 thousand new workers had gone so far in this year.
They are working as construction, factory, domestic and restaurant workers, fishermen and in other sectors.
A Bangladeshi businessman living in Doha said that according to the Labour Board of the country if any migrant worker wants to change his employer, he needs new visa. But when the Bangladeshi workers try to get details, they cannot get that.
“If any worker violates the law, he is fined 50 thousand Qatari Riyals and imprisoned for three months. But the problem is that the workers do not know what they need to do,” said Abdullah Ahmed, a Bangladeshi businessman living there.
In this situation, some workers have faced fines while changing their workplaces.
About the new law, the Bangladeshi Ambassador in Doha, Asud Ahmed said, he will help the workers in this regard.
Asud Ahmed said, “According to the new labour law, the company changing is very difficult for the workers. They should be aware of the bad agents.”
He said, the bad agencies collect money form the workers giving false promises of handsome salaries and other facilities. But they sign contacts in different papers. In this situations the workers get lower wages in their first companies which unavoidably push them to find new employers for better salaries.
