Sagar Biswas :
In a sudden move, the government of Kuwait has imposed ban on recruitment of workers from Bangladesh following an increase of migrants’ number in the middle-eastern country.
According to the Al-Anbaa newspaper, the Interior Ministry of Kuwait ‘reintroduced’ a ban on recruitment of Bangladeshi workers after months of reopening it under certain conditions that the employer must own a house and others.
Quoting a security source, the newspaper said: Assistant Undersecretary for Citizenship and Passports Affairs Sheikh Mazen Al-Jarrah made the decision on Monday after viewing statistics which showed that the number of the Bangladeshi community in Kuwait reached 200,000 last week.
Significantly, the concerned ministry and departments in Bangladesh were not fully aware about the ban in Kuwait, which is a country of world’s sixth largest oil reserves.
When contacted, Minister of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Nurul Islam BSC told The New Nation on Wednesday night, “We’ve heard about it. But we did not receive any relevant papers from Kuwait……However; we’re discussing the matter in an urgent basis.”
Do you know the exact reason behind the ban again? The Minister said, “No, I actually don’t know the reason. So far as I think, we’ll have to wait some time to get a full picture. We’re trying to know the details.”
It is not known whether Sheikh Mazen would reconsider his decision in the future or would announce more controls to regulate the recruitment of workers from Bangladesh, the Al-Anbaa also reported.
After a ban for long seven years, the Kuwait government reopened the market for Bangladeshi workers in the last week of April of 2014.
Sources close to the Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry said that all sorts of outdoor meetings, processions, blockade and other protest programmes are totally banned in Kuwait. It needs prior permission from the law enforcement agencies of the country to hold such programmes.
In 2006, Kuwait had stopped taking Bangladeshi workers raising different allegations against the migrants [of Bangladeshi], including involvement in crimes, attacking embassy officials, blockade and entering the country illegally.
After a long and hard lobbying, Bangladesh government got nod to send workers in 2014. And over 100 people so far have got job in an agricultural company following the procedure. Besides, several other companies have also finalized to take Bangladeshi workers for their projects in the meantime, the officials said.
“We’ve just got information about the news from media. We don’t see any solid reason for banning Bangladeshi workers again. We’ll sit in meetings on Thursday to take decision about the matter,” Javed Ahmed, Additional Secretary, Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment, said.
It is learnt that, Bangladesh Embassy in Kuwait has taken stringent measures against visa-trading. At the same time, several other protective measures have also been taken to resist Bangladeshi migrant workers from committing crimes.
According to an estimation in 2014, Kuwait has a population of 4.2 million people; 1.3 million are Kuwaitis and 2.9 million are expatriates, while the Kuwaiti dinar is the highest valued currency in the world.
