Reza Mahmud :
Potential Maldives labour market is going out of grip of Bangladesh gradually, sources said.
Bangladeshi expatriates working in Maldives said that the country has huge potentials of recruiting Bangladeshi workers.
More than one lakh Bangladeshi diasporas are working in the country.
A large number of those workers are undocumented. As a result, they are being deprived of justice in wages.
Sources said, about 60 thousand Bangladeshi migrant workers in Maldives have no legal work permits and other documents.
In September, 2019, Male announced a programme of giving chances to be legaised to those migrants who have not any legal documents for living and working there.
About 40, 000 thousand of Bangladeshi workers submitted their applications to the Male authority for legal work permits.
Meanwhile, about 20 thousand undocumented workers refrained from submitting their applications due to fear of being arrested and sending home.
In these circumstances, about 40,000 Bangladeshi workers are awaiting for being documented and legalised.
But the process has been delayed for long. Sources said, most of the legal and undocumented Bangladeshi Diasporas’ are working in constructions and tourism sector.
The tiny country increased its per capita income to USD 17,000 by developing its tourism sector.
Sources said that tourism and constructions sectors are enlarging day by day and the demands of foreign workers also are increasing sharply.
But the country has stopped recruiting Bangladeshi workers since 2019 for unknown reason.
“The country stopped importing workers from our country for one year, but after passing two years they still kept stop of recruiting our manpower,” said Mohammad Khokon, a migrant worker their went from Faridpur.
The migrants workers say that Male is recruiting workers from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka regularly, but the Bangladeshi workers are deprived without any known reason.
As a result, the potential labour market is going out of grip of Bangladeshi manpower day by day, they said.
The government of the country ensured Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in her recent visit that Male will start recruiting manpower from Dhaka soon.
But there is no sign yet to start such a process.
Meanwhile, the Bangladeshi migrants sources said, that neighbouring India has played a big role behind it.
They said that Maldivian employers trust Bangladeshi workers as they are hardworking and honest comparatively then others.
But the current Maldivian government has taken different policy being influenced by the neighbouring India.
The major neighbouring country wants to keep the labour market totally in its grip and not to favour Bangladeshi manpower there.
When contacted, Benjir Ahmed, MP, former President of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) told The New Nation, “Relation between Dhaka and Male are very good. But they are yet to start manpower recruiting from our country due to some delayed process.”
He said the country will resume recruiting manpower from Bangladesh soon after legalising our undocumented workers there.
