Over 500 Bangladeshi workers got no jobs after migrating to Kuwait on employment visas. Thanks to the Bangladesh embassy for extending their assistance to the fortune seekers who undoubtedly had entrapped by brokers in Bangladesh and dishonest sponsors in Kuwait. The non-suspecting workers spent huge sums on the fake job visas and now they blink their future. Deprived of employment, thousands of educated and half-educated youths migrate to several destinations; and for their quest for decent life traffickers’ rackets easily entrap them.
Though the situation is prevailing for many years as the new job generation in the private sector is almost nil and a government job is either highly competitive or involves high corruption and amidst the decreasing doing-business environment with the volatile political climate, the inaction of the government against illegal recruitment agencies and human traffickers making citizens’ life miserable.
Bangladesh embassy in Kuwait formally requested Kuwaiti Ministries and other authorities to realise compensations for the victims. The victims said that each of them had to pay the brokers up to Tk 7 lakh to migrate to Kuwait. At the beginning of November, they observed that about 300 migrant workers were struggling in a Qatar labour camp without water and power as a global estate agent chain suspended their project.
Amidst the crises, last week experts called for taking up strong labour migration programmes to promote and protect decent works for migrants at a seminar in Kathmandu. While migrants act as the main catalyst of the economic transformation, the government takes least care for their wellbeing, job security, a safe workplace, and other essentials. When the country’s GDP size increases riding on the vigorous remittance inflow, the government is also morally responsible for plights and pains of migrant workers.
The migrants’ security and welfare should be protected as their hard-earned remittance runs the wheel of the economy. The authorities must take stern action against the fraud manpower agencies.
