Kuwaiti police and special force used batons, fired tear gas canisters and arrested a few Bangladeshi workers, who in their hundreds, allegedly, along with some other Asian workers resorted to strike and turned violent last Monday at Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh, 20-km off Kuwait City, in support of their demand for higher pay and better working conditions.
Reports, supported by on-the-spot pictures, published in the local as well as international media on the demonstration must have aroused serious concern in the Bangladesh foreign office which only recently had to handle problems concerning expatriate Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
The Bangladeshi workers have been working in the Middle Eastern country since mid-70s with good reputation. Their numbers have swelled manifold over the last three decades or more. The Bangladeshis by nature are resilient and docile and try to adjust themselves to conditions around them. Never before they had taken recourse to demonstration or violence in countries they are working in. Had they been rouges or troublemakers, the Middle Eastern countries would not have recruited hundreds of thousands of them for employment. So, there must have been some serious reasons for these otherwise peace-loving Bangladeshi workers taking law into their own hands.
Kuwaiti newspapers and the state news agency, KUNA, highlighted the deprivations that have forced the Bangladeshi workers to abstain from their work and stage street demonstration, the events that are not tolerated by the authorities in the oil-rich Sheikhdom.
The Kuwait Times quoting Bangladeshi workers said more than 2000 workers were contracted by a Kuwait company-Al-Jawhara Company-for stevedoring and cleaning in al-Hassawi against the monthly salary of 50 dinars (one dinar is equivalent to Tk 258) but each of them is being paid 20 dinars a month, from which the employer deducts 12 dinars every month as visa-residency charge. A worker, thus, is made to survive with only 8 dinars (Tk. 2064). The living cost in Kuwait has gone up in recent months, making the life of low wage earning expatriate workers more difficult.
Though a number of members of the Kuwaiti parliament, following the Monday's violent incident, admitted that the workers were being denied of their rights by many Kuwaiti employers, ordinary Kuwaitis were found to be not ready to tolerate violent acts by the expatriate workers.
The Kuwaiti authorities, however, on Monday reached a deal with the Asian workers on wages and working conditions and workers agreed to return to their work. Commerce and Industry Minister Ahmad Baqer said Kuwait would investigate workers' grievances and ensure their rights were respected. But the deal was not without a cost. Nearly 300 workers, the identity of whom could not be known immediately, were deported after being paid their dues. It is most likely that all or most of them are Bangladeshis.
Something more ominous might be looming in the horizon. The Kuwaiti authorities have already started looking at possibilities of recruiting labourers from other Asian countries except Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, who, according to them, are prone to violence.
Prime Minister of Kuwait Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad, now on a visit to a number of Asian countries, reportedly, would hold negotiations on contracting new labourers for his country.
Last Monday's incidents are likely to leave a serious negative impact not only on the future flow of the Bangladeshi workers to Kuwait and other Arab countries but also on others now working in those countries.
Following the violent incidents involving the Bangladeshi workers in Kuwait, Adviser for Foreign Affairs Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury had talks with the Kuwaiti ambassador in Bangladesh and sought cooperation of the government of Kuwait to help resolve the problem.
But the obvious question that is likely to agitate everyone's mind is: why did not the foreign office or the Bangladesh mission in Kuwait discuss the Bangladeshi workers' problems with the Kuwaiti government earlier?
It is amply clear from the reports published in Kuwaiti newspapers that resentment among the Bangladeshi workers employed by the Kuwaiti company concerned was brewing over longtime. The workers had complained to their supervisors about low wage and poor working conditions but to no avail. These poor workers being not adequately educated do not know whom to approach to get redress for the way their employers discriminate against them.
It is hard to believe that the Bangladesh mission in Kuwait has been totally unaware of the growing resentment among the workers involved in the Monday's incident, particularly when the latter had resorted to strike on Saturday last.
Indifference and incompetence of the officials manning the Bangladesh missions abroad have already become proverbial. The expatriate workers, who are providing the much-needed cushion to the country's balance of payments (BoP), are looked down upon by the so-called diplomats and pseudo- diplomats in the missions. Allegations have been galore that when approached officials concerned in Bangladesh embassies create more hassles for the expatriate workers than resolving their problems.
zahidfe@yahoo.com
Who is to blame: employer, worker or mission?
Shamsul Huq Zahid | Published: July 30, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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