Shah Alam Nur :
The Bangladeshi workers, who returned home in recent months discourage female workers from going to some of the Middle-East countries, exposing the inhuman working conditions there. As a result, female workers are not showing less interest despite huge demand in those countries.
According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), against a demand for around 10,000 female workers per month, the Bureau is able to send only about 2,000 workers, as female workers are less interested to go to the Middle-East.
The BMET data also shows that out of around two lakh Bangladeshi women workers abroad, 90 per cent of them are in the Middle-East. But many of them had gathered bitter and frustrating experience. Poor pay, long working hours and almost prisoner’s life discourage the job seekers. Returning home, the Bangladeshi workers often complain of physical and mental torture and late payment of salary. So bad was her experience that Asma Akhtar from Faridpur, who returned from Lebanon in November last year, told The New Nation on Tuesday that she would never go to the Middle-East.
Almost every month, many female workers return home and share their horrific experiences with others.
The female migrant workers, especially the domestic helps, have to work 18 hours a day. They do not have any leisure day, and their employers do not allow them to go out of their workplaces.
“My employer used to lock me in a room until I would have finished the household chores. I had to work from 6:00 am to midnight every day,” said 20-year-old Tamanna Rahman, who returned home last December.
She went to a Middle-East country two years ago with high hopes to bring solvency to her poor family. She had come back empty handed.
She said, “As our financial condition was poor, my father had sent me (abroad) through local brokers,” adding she was paid only $120 a month. Sources said female migrant workers used to get $100 to $150 a month in the Middle East. The very good employers pay around $200 a month, but they are very few in number.
But the demand for female workers remains very strong in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
Preferring not to be named, a high official of the Manpower Ministry said that apart from the Middle-East, they do not have many optional destinations for our female workers.” The government, however, has time and again urged the Middle-Eastern countries to look into the working conditions of women migrant workers, but the situation remains the same.
Fraudulent and exploitative practices are also very common in the recruitment stage, said Sumaiya Islam, Director of Bangladesh Female Migrant Workers’ Association. Bangladesh recently has decided to send its female labour force to new Asian destinations, including Hong Kong and Singapore, where working conditions are better. Director General of BMET Begum Shamsun Nahar said that around 40,000 women had registered on online so that they could be sent to these new destinations.
She said “We have placed some recommendations, including increase of salaries and weekly leave facilities for female migrant workers.”
