Editorial Desk :
The government in April 2020 announced that the families of each migrant worker who died from coronavirus abroad will get Tk 3 lakh each as compensation from the Wage Earners’ Welfare Board (WEWB) under the expatriate welfare ministry. But the family members of deceased migrant workers are going through serious hardship to secure compensation as the government has not supplied papers in support of their claims. Documents at the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment state that around 2200 Bangladeshi expatriates died abroad from January to August 30 this year, of them around 1100 died in Saudi Arabia alone. Many Covid-19 victims were buried in the countries where they worked.
Labour counsellors of the Bangladesh embassies in those countries are responsible for sending documents of the Covid deaths. The Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment is repeatedly sending letters asking for documents of the deceased so that grants to their families may be given. The foreign ministry has to take immediate measures to solve the documentation problem. Families of deceased migrant workers are
facing serious hardships due to the non-cooperative attitudes of the labour counsellors of the Bangladeshi embassies in the host countries.
There are a plethora of files of such cases dumped on the WEWB desks. Relatives of many deceased migrants have been insisting on the board to disburse grants despite the shortage of proper documents. Sources said as per the government announcement, all the families of deceased Bangladeshi migrants are eligible to get grants no matter whether they worked legally or as undocumented workers. We would say the foreign ministry should take immediate steps to solve the problems for WEWB to provide compensation to the victims’ families so that they can go for alternative livelihoods. We must stand beside the helpless families as the loss of bread earners has turned them into helpless victims and are now unable to dream of hassle-free life.
