Some 1.0m people can get overseas jobs annually but Bangladesh couldn\\\'t bag half

Overseas employment is a most vital sector for the economy of Bangladesh as it is the second-highest foreign-currency earner. It contributes a lot to mitigating growing unemployment problem. Since 1976, nearly 9.0 million people have migrated to different countries with jobs.
Bangladesh earns a significant amount of remittance every year. The country is expected to receive $15.05 billion in 2014--enough to retain the eighth position it held last year in this field, says World Bank's Migration and Remittance Unit.
Generally, the employers in labour-receiving countries give priority to recruitment of Bangladeshis because of cheap labour and their hardworking nature. But, presently, the sector is passing through a crucial time. It cannot send notable number of workers abroad because of poor government initiatives to explore new and traditional markets and restrictions on recruitment by some key labour-receiving countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia have remained virtually closed to Bangladesh on allegation of illegal activities by some workers. The UAE has restricted visa issuance since august 2012.
The recent visit of Prime Minster Sheikh Hasina to the UAE generated a hope for withdrawal of the restriction on visa issuance. The Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment is considering the visit as a step forward for the reopening of the market. But, experts in the field say, it is necessary to take more diplomatic initiatives to get back the market.  
Despite several opportunities that had appeared during the last two years in manpower sector, like the resumption of Malaysian market, getting assurance from Bahrain, Qatar and Hong Kong of opening up their doors for recruiting more Bangladeshi workers, those prospects could not be tapped in the absence of aggressive marketing policy.
Even delegations from these countries visited Bangladesh and inked deals on manpower recruitment from here. But there is no progress thereafter. Experts blamed government's lack of negotiation with the labour- receiving countries and also coordination with the local private recruitment agencies.
They said because of the government-to-government (G-to-G) migration process in place, the outflow of workers to Malaysia hit snags. They felt that private recruiters should be included in the process to get a fruitful result. They are of the onion that the government has failed to create demand from the employers' side.
In November 2012, Malaysia and Bangladesh inked a deal on manpower recruitment. Malaysia had been waiting for Bangladeshi migrants while the government hoped for sending thousands of workers a year. But the bid appears to have flopped. So far, 8,027 Bangladeshis have gone to Malaysia after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) against a target of nearly 50,000 a year.
Malaysia needs nearly 1.0 million workers for plantation, construction, agriculture, manufacturing, and service sectors. Of them, Bangladesh can send nearly 0.5 million within five years, it was announced by the ministry concerned earlier.
But now Bangladesh is about to lose the market to other labour-exporting countries like Nepal, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, and Indonesia that are raising their share in the market, according to sector-insiders.
If such a situation continues, the market will be fully occupied by those countries shortly, people close to manpower-recruitment process said.
Minimum 1.0 million people can get jobs a year on the international job market following a growing demand for overseas workers in different countries. However, Bangladesh couldn't bag half the figure in recent years.
Only 339,371 Bangladeshis got overseas jobs during the last 10 months (January-October) in the current calendar year.  
Besides, Qatar needs thousands of workers for development of its infrastructures as it is the host country of the World Cup Football-2022. Due to insufficient diplomatic initiative, Bangladesh is yet to strike any agreement with the Middle-East country for sending workers.
A Qatari delegation visited Bangladesh at the beginning of 2013. Then they expressed satisfaction about Bangladesh's training facilities for rearing skilled workers. And they also gave assurance that they would consider recruiting workers from Bangladesh. Bangladeshi authority also assured them of supplying all types of labourers according to their demand. But, so far, there had been no visible progress in this regard.
Bangladesh also inked a deal with Hong Kong in the same year. The labour-receiving country showed interest in recruiting 80,000 female workers within one year. Presently, it needs nearly 0.5 million domestic helps.
Because of limited training facilities, Bangladesh also is unable to tap properly the opportunity held out by Hong Kong-dubbed world's commercial capital.
In the absence of open legal channel, jobless youths are depending on unauthorised recruitment agents or middlemen to go to Malaysia. Hundreds of Bangladeshis were drowned during desperate voyages towards the Southeast Asian country in recent years. And often they are being arrested by Thai law enforcers while crossing its maritime boundary.
It is very simple matter that when government cannot create employment opportunities at home or abroad, jobless youths are forced to select illegal way to seek job.
On the other hand, although the government has taken various initiatives to reduce unscrupulousness, middlemen are still very active to exploit the job-seekers.
Besides, government's initiative to reduce migration cost cannot see any tangible outcome for a lack of regular migration. They are going to Malaysia through different ways for Tk 300,000 to Tk400, 000 each.
Outbound workers are cheated by the middleman and dishonest recruitment agencies on regular basis. Despite having small scope for foreign workers in Libya and Iraq for turmoil, a corrupt and organised syndicate is active in illegally sending Bangladeshis to the war-torn Arab countries with assurance of lucrative jobs.
A large segment of the Bangladeshis currently working in Libya entered illegally with assistance of the syndicates. They send the Bangladeshis through one more border like Egypt, Sudan, Niger and Chad, according to embassy officials.
About 200 Bangladeshis had returned home from Egypt between May 2014 and April 2013 after having been released from jail. And the number of such defrauded returnees is increasing day by day.
The dishonest manpower agents are sending the fortune-seekers to Egypt on tourist visas and thereafter they push them into Libya through the Egyptian border. The manpower agents charge Tk 250,000 to 300,000 from each for jobs in Libya, according to returnee migrants.
Though the government enacted a law titled 'The Overseas Employment and Migrants Act 2013', no case was filed under the law so far. Besides, there are some weaknesses in the law which can hamper getting fair justice, experts said.
The government should take awareness programme so that job-seekers become well-informed about the law and can file case against fraudulent manpower agents. Civil societies, migrant rights organisations, and practicing lawyers also should come forward to create awareness about the act among migrant workers.
The authorities should also introduce a strong monitoring system to oversee any kind of wrongdoing. Private recruiters get chance to cheat the job-seekers as some corrupt government officials are usually involved in it directly.

The writer is FE Staff Reporter. She can be reached at: arafat_ara@hotmail.com