Manpower 'dalals' to have registration
Saturday, 5 December 2009
A Z M Anas
The government plans to register thousands of manpower brokers in a move to regulate the multi-layered overseas recruitment process, while stemming cases of fraud, officials said Friday.
Although nearly 800 private agencies obtained licences from the government to facilitate foreign placements of Bangladeshi overseas job seekers, only a few are involved in direct recruitment, relying mainly on sub-agents instead.
"Rarely does a recruiting agency send a worker directly abroad. It's a business dominated by brokers," said a Bureau of Manpower official.
"Unfortunately, this huge network remains outside the legal framework. It's extremely difficult to punish 'dalals,' in case of fraud, because they are not covered by law," he added.
The main responsibility of the sub-agents is to supply manpower according to the demand from the recruiting agencies.
The move came after the Manpower Bureau sent a proposal to the Overseas Employment Ministry to make the registration process mandatory for foreign recruitment intermediaries, also known as sub-agents.
The Army taskforce, formed during the last caretaker government, also recommended registering 'dalals' to plug the black hole in the overseas recruitment industry, estimated at US$2.0 billion a year.
A ministry official said it is now reviewing the Bureau proposal and will take necessary steps, which are expected to shield migrant workers from fraud by a network of 50,000-60,000 sub-agents across the country.
Officials said while placing orders, recruiting agencies, usually sub-agents, brief potential migrant workers about the nature of the job, visa type, salary and the working conditions, destination country and most importantly, the cost of migration.
"The sub-agents work in remote villages which they consider 'ideal' to spot potential migrants. They mainly look for illiterate persons or those with low levels of education, as it is easiest to convince them to migrate," wrote Rita Afsar in an ILO-funded research paper.
Studies found the sub-agents receive between Tk. 10,000 and Tk. 60,000 as commission from the agencies on a case-by-case basis, which is inclusive of all types of services that they provided to clients.
Bangladesh remains a major sending nation in the word and its workers' deployments first topped 100,000 in 1989, since the country's entry to the global labour market in the 1970s.
Deployments remained under 300,000 until 2006, and then more than doubled in 2007, largely because of an increase in placements in the Gulf region, with the UAE replacing Saudi Arabia as the top Gulf destination.
In the same year, 275,000 migrants went to Malaysia, making the Southeast Asian economy the top destination for Bangladeshi migrants.
Deployments to Malaysia fell by over half in 2008 compared with 2007, but the UAE more than compensated, taking in almost 420,000 workers last year or half the total deployment that year.
An estimated 5.6 million Bangladeshis are employed abroad who wired home $9.7 billion in remittance, making it the second biggest source of foreign exchange after merchandise exports.
The World Bank said Bangladesh is world's eighth largest recipient nation of remittances, which account for more than 9.0 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP).
Ms. Afsar, a senior research fellow at the state think tank Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), suggested that the Bangladesh Overseas Employment Policy (BOEP) should ensure adequate punishment for the violation of regulations by private recruiting agencies, to act as a real disincentive.
The BIDS researcher welcomed the move, saying the registration of 'dalals' would help streamline the recruitment industry long derided as costly and opaque.
The government plans to register thousands of manpower brokers in a move to regulate the multi-layered overseas recruitment process, while stemming cases of fraud, officials said Friday.
Although nearly 800 private agencies obtained licences from the government to facilitate foreign placements of Bangladeshi overseas job seekers, only a few are involved in direct recruitment, relying mainly on sub-agents instead.
"Rarely does a recruiting agency send a worker directly abroad. It's a business dominated by brokers," said a Bureau of Manpower official.
"Unfortunately, this huge network remains outside the legal framework. It's extremely difficult to punish 'dalals,' in case of fraud, because they are not covered by law," he added.
The main responsibility of the sub-agents is to supply manpower according to the demand from the recruiting agencies.
The move came after the Manpower Bureau sent a proposal to the Overseas Employment Ministry to make the registration process mandatory for foreign recruitment intermediaries, also known as sub-agents.
The Army taskforce, formed during the last caretaker government, also recommended registering 'dalals' to plug the black hole in the overseas recruitment industry, estimated at US$2.0 billion a year.
A ministry official said it is now reviewing the Bureau proposal and will take necessary steps, which are expected to shield migrant workers from fraud by a network of 50,000-60,000 sub-agents across the country.
Officials said while placing orders, recruiting agencies, usually sub-agents, brief potential migrant workers about the nature of the job, visa type, salary and the working conditions, destination country and most importantly, the cost of migration.
"The sub-agents work in remote villages which they consider 'ideal' to spot potential migrants. They mainly look for illiterate persons or those with low levels of education, as it is easiest to convince them to migrate," wrote Rita Afsar in an ILO-funded research paper.
Studies found the sub-agents receive between Tk. 10,000 and Tk. 60,000 as commission from the agencies on a case-by-case basis, which is inclusive of all types of services that they provided to clients.
Bangladesh remains a major sending nation in the word and its workers' deployments first topped 100,000 in 1989, since the country's entry to the global labour market in the 1970s.
Deployments remained under 300,000 until 2006, and then more than doubled in 2007, largely because of an increase in placements in the Gulf region, with the UAE replacing Saudi Arabia as the top Gulf destination.
In the same year, 275,000 migrants went to Malaysia, making the Southeast Asian economy the top destination for Bangladeshi migrants.
Deployments to Malaysia fell by over half in 2008 compared with 2007, but the UAE more than compensated, taking in almost 420,000 workers last year or half the total deployment that year.
An estimated 5.6 million Bangladeshis are employed abroad who wired home $9.7 billion in remittance, making it the second biggest source of foreign exchange after merchandise exports.
The World Bank said Bangladesh is world's eighth largest recipient nation of remittances, which account for more than 9.0 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP).
Ms. Afsar, a senior research fellow at the state think tank Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), suggested that the Bangladesh Overseas Employment Policy (BOEP) should ensure adequate punishment for the violation of regulations by private recruiting agencies, to act as a real disincentive.
The BIDS researcher welcomed the move, saying the registration of 'dalals' would help streamline the recruitment industry long derided as costly and opaque.