ON Tuesday, 110 female workers returned in two flights from Saudi Arabia being physically tortured and sexually abused. Earlier, they had to stay in a safe home for months. The Tuesday’s incident is not an isolated one. Several hundred female migrants each year go to the Gulf countries, especially to Saudi Arabia, for housekeeping and other sub-standard jobs. But most of them become the victims of physical and mental abuse by the house-owners and compel to return home with reduced health, mental trauma and illness. What’s most sorrowful is that they can hardly cope with their families.
A survey by the BRAC Migration Programme has found that –questionable deaths of female migrant workers have alarmingly been rising in the recent years. Between 2016 and June this year, bodies of 311 women migrants were sent from the Middle East, mostly from Saudi Arabia. Of them, 53 committed suicide, 120 died due to stroke and 56 in accidents. Over the years, deaths due to suicide have seen an alarming rise — from 1 in 2016 to 17 so far this year. This year, one in every three deaths is suicide. Ain o Salish Kendra said such high number of reported suicides and deaths in strokes raise a lot of suspicions and it called for an investigation. Employers in the Arab countries, especially in Saudi Arabia, consider these female domestic workers as slaves. So they behave whatever they like.
Family members of several victims said that their relatives were sexually abused while staying in the Middle East. The other two major factors are brain stroke and accident. Women going to the Middle East are mostly aged between 20 and 40. Why would they suffer stroke? Also, female migrants work indoors, and it is surprising that so many of them would die in accidents. We feel it was high time for Bangladesh government to investigate the cases thoroughly to identify why such unnatural deaths are happening in large numbers.
But we see government feels relaxed even when the number of deaths and harassments of the female workers is increasing day by day.
