High cost of migration leads to debt bondage of Bangladeshi workers

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Mashiur Rahaman
Excessive recruitment cost is helping flourish illegal labour trafficking from Bangladesh making its low-skilled job seekers desperate for quick money to repay the debt they left behind, a UNHCR report said.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) report blamed the country's 700 odd recruiting agencies and their group, the BAIRA, for helping contribute "forced labour and debt bondage.
It said members Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) "unlawfully" charge more than they are permitted from the workers for placing them in low-skilled jobs that usually pay between $100 and $150 per month.
"Such high fees have been reported by the ILO to contribute to the placement of some of these workers in debt bondage or forced labour once overseas, often results in situations of labour trafficking," it said.
The report is also critical of the government's role in allowing the recruiting agencies to get on with their crimes.
It said the government has not demonstrated "sufficient progress in criminally prosecuting and convicting labor trafficking offenders, particularly those responsible for the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers for the purpose of labor trafficking."
"The government has allowed BAIRA to set fees, license individual agencies, and certify workers for overseas labor, while not exercising adequate oversight over this consortium of labor recruiters to ensure that their practices do not facilitate the debt bondage of foreign workers," it added.
The UNHCR asked the government to improve oversight of "Bangladesh's recruiting agencies to ensure they are not promoting practices that contribute to labour trafficking; and provide protection services for adult male trafficking victims and victims of forced labour."
President of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) Golam Mostafa rejected the accusation saying it's a conspiracy against the country's largest income generating sector.
"We agree that the cost of migration of our workers is high. But we are working to bring it down significantly within this year," he told the FE, adding all 700 recruiting agencies in the country abide by state rules.
"This is completely unjustified mixing-up manpower export and human trafficking. If Bangladesh is labelled as human trafficking state, none will accept our workers to migrate and work overseas," he added.
The BAIRA president forecast a massive downturn in the highest income generating sector if the 'plotters' succeed.
The US State Department's global report on human trafficking last month quoted extensively from the UNHCR report.
The American foreign ministry has warned that it would place Bangladesh in the club of worst human trafficking offenders --- which may lead to sanctions --- if the government can't curb labour trafficking.
Bangladesh earlier was placed in the Tire-two category by the US State Department, labelled as one of the most vulnerable states in terms of human trafficking.
The government so far responded quickly to the US concern, shutting down nine recruiting agencies, cancelling the licenses of 25 agencies, temporarily suspending seven agencies and fined six others, an official said.
The government's Bureau of Manpower and Employment Training (BMET) has also filed three cases against recruiting agencies for their involvement in fraudulent recruitment practices that "potentially facilitated human trafficking", he added.
Director General of BMET Masud Ahmed told the FE that they took the report seriously. "We have some limitations. But we are doing our best with the limited resource and capacities," he said.
"We have developed systems to receive and respond against complaints from the outgoing workers if they face such troubles. It has already started work," he said.