Costs of migration

Most of the migrants are desperate people. They are prepared to take any risk to fulfill their dream of a better life. Knowing this, recruiting agents and human traffickers take full advantage. The former get paid many times over what is officially due. The smugglers extort money beyond any reasonable limit. In the hands of recruiting agents the migrants are safe to reach their destination and get jobs which very often may be inferior to what had been promised. The human traffickers, on the other hand, don't keep their promise. They either abandon the migrants midway or hold them captive for ransom money.
The plight and tragic ending of Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants have recently been in the news with harrowing tales. Newspapers have shown camps in deep forest in Thailand where migrants were held captive. The photos also showed mass graves of hapless migrants who starved to death or died due to torture while kept as captive. The revelation has also shown emaciated and hapless migrants in rickety boats adrift in sea near Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. They were abandoned by the smugglers with no food or drinking water. In some cases the authorities of countries in whose territorial waters the ships and boats of abandoned migrants had been adrift were pushed back by them refusing shelter. The heartrending spectacle of these men, women and children moved the United Nations, USA and European Union to urge the nearby countries to open their ports and give shelter to the hungry and sick migrants. As a result, humanitarian gesture has been made by the countries near the boat people to rescue them.
The site of camps in deep forest where migrants had been kept as captive for ransom, the mass graves and the boatload of hungry and sick people adrift in sea tell the tragedy of migrants most emphatically. They do not deserve this as they had paid through their nose for the journey. As if that payment was not enough, they had to pay with their lives for failure to pay more.
Bangladeshi migrants who leave the country through legal channel have also to pay a high price, though death is not part of it. According to a World Bank report, Bangladesh migrant workers had to pay the highest recruitment costs in the world. Recruitment costs paid by migrant workers to recruitment agents, on top of fees paid by employers are a major drain of poor migrants' income and remittances, according to the Migration and Development Report released by the World Bank recently. Quoting a recent survey by the Global Knowledge Partnership on migration and development the World Bank said workers paid recruitment costs amounting to US$ 1955 on average in Kuwait with the Bangladeshis paying the highest. It ranged between $1675 and $5154. A 2009 Bangladesh Household Remittance survey conducted by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) found that more than half of the migrants paid over $2000 in recruitment fees.
On top of direct fees paid to recruitment agents, migrant workers are often subject to usurious interest rates of over fifty per cent on loans taken to cover the cost of migration, the study quoted. Recruitment agents often have to offer bribes to the employing company with amounts ranging between $300 to $1000 per worker. These costs are recovered from the migrants by the agents. All over the world almost 10 million people use official channels to migrate every year, including Bangladeshis. A large number of them pay illegal recruitment fees to agents. This is known to government officials but nothing much has been done to stop this malpractice. In Bangladesh, about 108,709 people found jobs abroad in the year to March compared to 96,088 in the same period last year. In March 2015 overseas employment rose by 36 per cent from the same month a year ago. Large-scale construction works and fiscal expansion in the Gulf Co-operation Council countries and growing demand in Malaysia were behind the increase. Apart from the flow of migrants officially to these countries some of the demand may have been met by illegal migrants who pay exorbitantly high amount to human traffickers.
It is obvious that three categories of agents are involved in sending migrants abroad. In the first category are the recruitment agents who are officially authorised. They do not hesitate to exploit the migrants by charging more than what is due. Smugglers who promise to send workers illegally receive a huge amount and constitute the second category. The third category consists of smugglers who take money before the start of journey and later ask for ransom in league with foreign smugglers. Their exploitation of the workers is the worst. They also abandon the migrants before reaching destination. In varying degrees the migrants are exploited by all three categories of agents, legal and illegal. The treatment and exploitation by the smugglers of the third category has come to light vividly only recently.
The government has to protect the interests of migrants who are being exploited and subjected to torture. Stern action should be taken against smugglers so that this becomes exemplary. As the Rohingyas seek refuge and work abroad because of persecution by Myanmar authorities discussion should be held with them to stop this inhuman treatment. The UN Secretary General has described the Rohingyas as the worst persecuted minorities. The help of the UN should be sought in settling the matter with Myanmar authorities. Help also should be taken from America which has shown compassion for the migrant workers to the extent of re-settling them in America.
It would be hypocritical to gloat over huge remittance received from the migrant workers while doing little to relieve them of their plight. The recent developments and revelations regarding the migrant workers should prompt the authorities to address the problem urgently.                     
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