Around 80,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers have returned home from Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the last five years. The KSA, however, earlier announced that it will send back all the foreign workers who have no valid documents, mainly ‘Iqama.’ Several migrant workers have also detained and sent to a deportation camp. But what’s most disturbing is that a number of Bangladeshi migrants who returned from KSA have been sent back home despite obtaining proper documents.
Apart from forcefully sending back, another problem has now surfaced when several hundred women migrants are returning from KSA being sexually harassed and physically tortured. The situation has risen at such an extent that Bangladesh on September 26 admitted for the first time that its female workers are being repatriated from Saudi Arabia because of sexual abuse. Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment in a report submitted to the Parliamentary Standing Committee mentioned that ‘women had come back because of sexual and physical abuse’.
Earlier in August, the JS body demanded answers from ministry concerned whether migrant women are facing abuse while working in Saudi Arabia. According to testimony given by111 women who returned in August this year from KSA — 35 per cent of them had left their jobs because of sexual and physical abuse. The ministry’s report noted 11 reasons for which Bangladeshi female workers are returning home. These include physical abuse, deprivation of food and holidays, denial of sick leave, and non-payment of salaries.
As per official estimation, 2,57,317 workers went to KSA last year and 2,34,071 also till August this year. Around 11 lakh Bangladeshis are staying in Saudi Arabia. But unofficially, the number is around 20 lakh. Some of them are staying there for more than 20 years.
It is very shameful that our women are being sent to foreign countries in the name of earning remittance only to become victims of sexual abuse and torture. And what’s condemnable is that government has been trying to deny the fact from the very beginning. To cool down public outrage, the Expatriate Welfare ministry some months ago was compelled to send a delegation to Saudi Arabia. But the ministerial team at that time said it found no evidence that women faced abuse while working in KSA. But that lie didn’t last long.
Everyone knows if there is any difficulty it needs to identify the problems first. About sending our migrant workers to KSA, we think, the problems have been identified. Now it’s the time to discuss solutions. When the ministry concerned has admitted the criticality of the situation, especially considering past comments where ministerial team had denied that abuse has taken place, it will not wise for the government to waste time sitting idle.
The authorities concerned must take immediate initiatives to end the exploitation of these vulnerable women. Bangladesh Foreign Ministry along with our embassy should ask the Saudi Arabian government why they are deporting Bangladeshi migrants even though they had valid documents. At the same time, the abuse of migrant women should also be raised.
We don’t want to see our women to be tortured and abused sexually in countries where such crimes are committed knowingly. We warned the government before also that our girls must not be sent as domestic workers to Middle Eastern countries. We cited examples of countries which refused to send their girls as domestic helps in those countries. We do not have an accountable government so we are not surprised that our girls are continuously abused in helpless conditions. Our embassies do not bother to be disturbed for doing nothing to help the victims.
