We must not send women workers to be abused

ACCORDING to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Bangladesh has an extremely bad record of protecting its own citizens, particularly female workers abroad. The Human Rights Watch news said from London on Friday that Bangladesh should improve protection for its domestic workers abroad. We do not agree to this type of typical NGO suggestion. They know that in no country of Middle East our embassy officials can have any opportunity for supervising the women domestic helpers. They are not even allowed to use mobile telephone. Once taken from Bangladesh, our women lead most helpless life with no access to outsiders. We have learned from the women workers who returned from these countries, how slavishly they were treated.

But this is an area where Bangladesh government appears not having any active policy. It appears that our embassies in Riyadh and other capitals in Gulf countries are quite indifferent about it when our female workers remained exposed to physical abuse and financial exploitation. HRW has rightly said that Bangladesh should have a strong policy to ensure safety of its female workers. But those so-called ‘strong-policy’ can’t be pursued for taking care of the welfare of our workers. Let the government show what guarantees it has been able to secure from the governments of Middle Eastern countries for our female workers.

We must protect the welfare of our women folk knowing well that they are being abused in the Middle East and Hong Kong.

Our leadership must prove to be competent to build the economy with due emphasis on job creation for the young ones inside the country. We cannot have a government that is only happy with money repatriated by job-seekers abroad without caring for the miseries they suffer. It is also no honour for our country that our women are abused abroad.