Putting an end to overseas job-seekers' woes
Friday, 21 November 2008
Shamshul Haque
IN many cases, our workers on going abroad find a complete mismatch between what the manpower exporters back home had promised them as regards remunerations and other terms and conditions of their jobs and what they finally get. The same may be far short of what were promised combined with the compulsion of working under inhuman conditions. The jobs in other cases may have no similarity with what they were told to be the nature of the jobs before they left Bangladesh.
Other types of gross violation of terms and conditions of jobs are noted. It appears that Bangladeshi job seekers become the worst victims of such offences. If some persons should be mainly blamed for such undesirable conditions of our workers abroad, then they would be the typical manpower exporters who promise so many things to workers and take cut throat fees from them for sending them abroad but in practice push them into great oppression and exploitation in foreign lands.
In many cases, job seekers sell their last bits of ancestral land property or even the family jewelry to provide the fees to the fraudulent manpower agents. When they are detained and sent back from foreign airports or are put in jails there, their very great agonies then should be very easy to understand. After returning home, they and their families face only worse poverty and deprivation. Any notion of fair play and justice demands that these cases of great injustices should be responded with the most unsparing and resolute actions by the law enforcers.
Even manpower agents, who have been sending clients abroad with genuine visas and work permits, are also known to be engaged in unfair dealings. Government has earmarked the maximum amount of fee that can be charged from job seekers in different categories which are to be paid to the agents as their fees. While this regulation is observed on paper, the reality in most cases is that the agents take far greater amounts from their clients leaving no tangible proofs of such transactions. This is also a crime and repression which calls for investigation and actions. With the agents taking only legitimate fees, it should become easier for people to go abroad with jobs. In that case, a greater number would feel inspired to take up overseas jobs which would mean greater earnings for the country from manpower export.
IN many cases, our workers on going abroad find a complete mismatch between what the manpower exporters back home had promised them as regards remunerations and other terms and conditions of their jobs and what they finally get. The same may be far short of what were promised combined with the compulsion of working under inhuman conditions. The jobs in other cases may have no similarity with what they were told to be the nature of the jobs before they left Bangladesh.
Other types of gross violation of terms and conditions of jobs are noted. It appears that Bangladeshi job seekers become the worst victims of such offences. If some persons should be mainly blamed for such undesirable conditions of our workers abroad, then they would be the typical manpower exporters who promise so many things to workers and take cut throat fees from them for sending them abroad but in practice push them into great oppression and exploitation in foreign lands.
In many cases, job seekers sell their last bits of ancestral land property or even the family jewelry to provide the fees to the fraudulent manpower agents. When they are detained and sent back from foreign airports or are put in jails there, their very great agonies then should be very easy to understand. After returning home, they and their families face only worse poverty and deprivation. Any notion of fair play and justice demands that these cases of great injustices should be responded with the most unsparing and resolute actions by the law enforcers.
Even manpower agents, who have been sending clients abroad with genuine visas and work permits, are also known to be engaged in unfair dealings. Government has earmarked the maximum amount of fee that can be charged from job seekers in different categories which are to be paid to the agents as their fees. While this regulation is observed on paper, the reality in most cases is that the agents take far greater amounts from their clients leaving no tangible proofs of such transactions. This is also a crime and repression which calls for investigation and actions. With the agents taking only legitimate fees, it should become easier for people to go abroad with jobs. In that case, a greater number would feel inspired to take up overseas jobs which would mean greater earnings for the country from manpower export.