ON 11 July, 49 Bangladeshi migrants were rescued off the coast of Tunisia from a sunken boat in the Mediterranean sea. The undocumented Bangladeshi migrants had boarded the oil platform Didon after their boat sank about 80 kilometers off the coastal town of Zarzis near the Libyan border. Earlier on 25 June, Tunisia authorities rescued 267 migrants, including 264 Bangladeshis, who tried to sail from neighbouring Libya to Europe across the Mediterranean. In the last few years, Bangladesh was featured in International media several times for unsafe migration, along with some war-torn nations.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has said the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons is a timely reminder of the problems and risks faced by over 700,000 Bangladeshis who choose to migrate abroad every year. Vulnerable migrants are often the targets of traffickers and find themselves in situations that can result in debt bondage, forced labour, sexual exploitation, forced marriages, and other forms of modern slavery. The IOM urged Bangladesh to redouble efforts and look at not only from the whole of government but also the whole of society.
The Covid-19 situation has further aggravated problems, and migrants have become even more vulnerable as some have lost their jobs. Some are more desperate, looking for new jobs and new opportunities to feed their families. The IOM said trafficking affects people on an individual level, on a family level, and at the level of society. We must listen to the people who have been affected so that we can assist them better. We must listen to the survivors of trafficking to hear about their experiences, their stories, and not only learn from them but use that knowledge to improve our interventions and our responses to stop trafficking.
When the government blows up balloons of development surprises the deadly journeys of low-income people to fetch their dream of dignified life in Europe is a sharp contradiction. The death of migrants in the Mediterranean can’t be translated other than the loopholes of the tales of development. Now, we have to take the right policy, the right approach, and the right action to create a dignified livelihood scheme for youths thus to prevent the risky journeys of Bangladeshi citizens for migration.
