Recruitment brokers or cheaters!

THE government, as reported, has no plan to regulate brokers involved with the recruitment of male and female workers from the remote rural areas for overseas jobs. As per media reports the brokers scattered across the country usually influence low-income generating people to migrate by promising them good jobs at high wages but at the end, many failed to reach the destination and suffer inhumanely midway. The mad rush for migration among low income generating people for a respectful life often make them easy victims of human traffickers who earn ransom by kidnapping migrant workers. The government by introducing digital registration for migrating aspirants with Countrywide Union Parishad offices without any intermediary can reduce hassle and fees for migration.

Victimized migrant workers and rights campaigners have long demanded that the middlemen are brought under some sort of regulation to prevent their cheating. But it was difficult to take action against thousands of intermediaries rather than taking action against recruiting agencies. If implemented the new plan would be able to reduce human trafficking and harassment of migrant workers as well as slash the costs of migration. There are hundred of stories where brokers take millions promising high wages but the migrant workers actually get no jobs there or less than the promised money. Many post-return migrant workers made the intermediaries responsible for their sufferings and sought punishment.

The latest TIB report also revealed that as much as 90 percent of five lakh male migrant workers have had to pay two to three times the usual migration cost last year. The aspirants have to pay manifold amounts due to the influence of middleman. The unnecessarily high cost of getting a work visa means that many migrant workers have to carry a huge burden of debt which has to be paid back, leaving very little for them to save or send back home. Apart from refugees from war-torn Syria, Bangladeshis are the next highest in number of migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea or rescued while seafaring to enter Europe. It is mentionable that brokers have lured some 2.5 lakh Bangladeshis through sea routes in the last 8 years, held them in Thai jungles for ransom, and used them as slaves.

Migration levels may fall for a while, but the Ministry concerned should follow the policy and introduce a one-stop service for migrating people. The government should ease the migration process, the activities of the middlemen would then diminish.