Official support for migrant women workers yet scanty
Munima Sultana
3/17/2007
A few years ago when Taslima of Narayanganj district was to leave Dhaka city for Bahrain, she was told to memorise always an address of Manikganj as her own address. That time, she did not know the reason. But after her forced return home from that country, she has come to realise it.
Taslima was sent to Bahrain with a fake passport, which the middlemen handed over to her after pasting the photo of her face over that of a genuine passport holder and she was told not to forget the said address. As the entire process was illegal, she also realised that she even could not get police support after her employment because of the false passport.
Official support for migrant women workers yet scanty
Munima Sultana
3/17/2007
A few years ago when Taslima of Narayanganj district was to leave Dhaka city for Bahrain, she was told to memorise always an address of Manikganj as her own address. That time, she did not know the reason. But after her forced return home from that country, she has come to realise it.
Taslima was sent to Bahrain with a fake passport, which the middlemen handed over to her after pasting the photo of her face over that of a genuine passport holder and she was told not to forget the said address. As the entire process was illegal, she also realised that she even could not get police support after her employment because of the false passport.
She said her employer took the police help in sending her back home after she had to realise her due salaries for five months from him. Afterward, tried to find out another job through a local agency office to cope with the situation.
Not only this, when this correspondent met Taslima at a training school for female migrant workers in the city recently, she was found aware of many other matters that made her foreign employment totally unsuccessful. After the training, she is, however, found to have learnt more about the official process to make her next trip abroad safe and sound.
She said she wants to go again to pay back her loan money which she spent for her last foreign employment.
Not only Taslima, 21 others participants of that week-long training programme of Bangladesh Women Migrant Association (BOMSA) also came to know about the formal channels and procedures which include how to get passport by own initiative, contact an officially registered recruiting agency, obtain clearance from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), etc.
Since the inception in 2000, BOMSA has disseminated this kind of job-related information to more than 500 women. Not only BOMSA, there are other agencies including BMET, BAIRA (Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agency) and WARBE (Welfare Association of Repatriated Bangladeshi Employees) which also conduct pre-departure training programmes for female labour migrants.
But the total number of such trainings and the capacity building are, however, far below the demand of female migrant workers.
Recruiting agency sources said the demand for female labours is increasing by almost 100 times everyday. Their demand as care takers of old people and children, housemaids, nurses, cleaners, readymade garment workers, etc., are not only increasing in the Middle-East countries but also in Europe. A UN study has revealed that after 2025, Europe itself would need several million female workers to support their service sector.
Alim, proprietor of SA Trading, one of the recruiting agencies for female workers, said the demand for female migrant workers of Bangladesh is increasing because of their adoptability, low wage compared to the Filipino, Indonesian and Sri Lankan women.
He said due to the gap between demand and supply following low capacity building in training institutes and government support many women cannot avail of the better working conditions and face harassment and exploitation.
After talking with a number of returnee female migrants at Chunpara in Rupganj thana of Narayanganj district, this correspondent found that the successful returnees have improved their living standard by purchasing lands and repairing homes. They have supported their families and invested their money in business for their husbands.
Fatema said she brought more than Tk 400,000 which she invested in her own home as well as through her in-laws. Fatema being a garment worker in Dubai earned equivalent to Tk 12,000 monthly during her stay in that country for five years. She has also kept a portion of her earning for going abroad again.
According to BMET, a total of 17,657 female workers have been working in mostly Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Jordan – most of them as house maids in 2006. The total number of female migrants from 1991 to 2006 was 62,114.
When asked the returnees about the abuse and torture, they said there were some cases, particularly experienced by housemaids which happened because of lack of supervision and communication. They were not allowed to talk to anyone and restricted in movement.
Sumaiya Islam, Project Director of BOMSA, said despite a favourable situation for women migration, many women could not avail of jobs with better wage because of lack of related policy. She said there is a migration policy which, however, does not have any gender focus.
The government has permitted the recruitment of female workers in 2002 with some conditions, which include they should be married and not below 25 years of age. To avoid harassment against them, it has also issued a circular to the recruiting agencies fixing an official rate of commission to the agents and bindings like depositing security money at the government fund, having air tickets for intending workers from the employers. As per the circular, a woman migrant should not pay more than Tk 30,000 to Tk 35,000 for their recruitment. But the women who returned said many of them spent upto Tk 50,000 due to being unaware of the government rules.
Alim claimed that since allowing women migration, the remittance inflow has increased from those receiving countries where the number of women workers is high. He said women who work as homemaids usually are not allowed to go out and saved almost their entire salary.
Rita Afsar, a senior research fellow of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, found from her study on female workers in Dubai that women curtail their expenditure on clothing, foods and remitted home nearly three-forths of their income.
Ali said the abuse of women becomes frequent when the government remains too protective on one side and too relaxed on other side to avoid this kind of situation.
Sumaiya said after per successful lobbying with the past government, it has committed legal assistance to the female migrants and set up a hotline to collect allegations and take actions in connection with such allegations. But nothing has happened or done afterwards.
She alleged that the labour attaché does not give any support to the victims and there is no database about migrant workers. There is still a tendency among the people to see women migration as with trafficking, which is not the reality, she added.