UNB, Dhaka :The government has taken hashers measures to prevent jobseekers from resorting to illegal ways for going abroad using visit, short visit and student visas as well as professional and social visit passes (VPs).Sources at the Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry said the ministry has already issued a letter with three directives to all official concerned to prevent the illegal migration.The directives include keeping proofs and offer letters provided by educational institutions abroad, accepting no Xerox copy, or re-written copy, of student/visit visa and verifying the dollar endorsed in the passport. The airport authorities have already been directed to check all these things.The letters also mentioned that many unemployed youngmen from villages are these days being sent to Malaysia, Indonesia, the Maldives, Singapore, Oman, Qatar, Egypt and others countries for jobs in an illegal way through brokers. The brokers take Tk 3-4 lakh from them for sending them using visit/short visit and student visas, it added.After being cheated, the poor and innocent rural people who have gone abroad in search of jobs through brokers have been leading a miserable life there. Some of them have also been jailed for going there illegally which is also embarrassing for Bangladesh, the letter says.Talking to UNB, Expatriates’ Welfare and Oversees Employment Minister Nurul Islam said they have taken strict measures to prevent the illegal ways of going abroad.”We’ve also directed our Expatriates’ Welfare Desk and the immigration authorities to intensify the vigil to prevent jobseekers from going abroad in any illegal way,” he said. The minister observed that the jobseekers should go abroad legally ways to avoid hassles and danger as there is no benefit of using the illegal way other than serving jail terms in a foreign land.”If we find any link of any people, who send jobseekers in illegal ways, we’ll take steps against them under immigration laws,” he added.
