Training for domestic workers
Friday, 12 March 2010
FRIENDS of the underdog would be pleased to learn that the government of Bangladesh has made it mandatory for low-skilled women workers, aspiring to go abroad, to undergo some training before taking up jobs in alien lands. The bureau for manpower employment and training is said to be currently providing basic language lessons -- Arabic and English -- in seven of its centres dedicated to serving women migrants. Over the past 19 years, at least a hundred and fifty thousand of them have flown to foreign jobs, most being unskilled or semi-skilled and ending up as domestics. Although the scope for trained nurses is considerable, less than one per cent of Bangladesh's migrant workers get into nursing jobs, while three to four per cent manage to get work in garments factories. On account of the lack of language or 'streetwise' skills of women workers in general, a good number of them are reportedly vulnerable to getting the wrong end of the stick. Training in standard housekeeping skills could go a long way in enhancing the status of Bangladesh's workers and discouraging oppression by employers.
But the fact is there is a huge gap between the expressed intent and the reality on the ground. Whereas countries like Indonesia and the Philippines offer no less than six months of training to their women workers before sending them abroad, Bangladesh is giving their counterparts here only about one to three weeks of rather perfunctory training. Then again, there are many snags -- such as problems of food and board, middlemen and recruiting agents' pressures and other such stresses -- that prevent even this apology of a training to benefit the target group. The ministry concerned should apply its mind seriously to the socio-economic realities of the country's aspiring migrants in order to be able to train them properly and improve their lot both at home and abroad. An adequate number of uptodate and fully residential training centres for potential women workers needs to be set up throughout the country without delay, so that Bangladesh can compete successfully in the global market for 'cheap' but competent labour in various sectors in the international market.
With respect to domestic workers, there is scope for training disadvantaged women for the home market as well, and it should be done, both to abolish the near-slavery that 'servants' are subjected to generally, and to create a pool of efficient and fairly professional cleaners, cooks, nannies, to be hired on civilised terms of reference. In the late 1990's, a group, calling itself the Domestic Workers' Association, Bangladesh (DWAB) had formed a human chain around the Secretariat, demanding that domestic workers be recognised as labour and their wages and work hours be fixed as per labour law. They also called upon the government to take effective steps against the criminal abuse that some of them faced at the hands of employers. To eradicate such crimes, there is no alternative to empowering domestic workers and simultaneously sensitising the public about their human rights, not only in terms of international labour laws but also under religious codes of conduct.
But the fact is there is a huge gap between the expressed intent and the reality on the ground. Whereas countries like Indonesia and the Philippines offer no less than six months of training to their women workers before sending them abroad, Bangladesh is giving their counterparts here only about one to three weeks of rather perfunctory training. Then again, there are many snags -- such as problems of food and board, middlemen and recruiting agents' pressures and other such stresses -- that prevent even this apology of a training to benefit the target group. The ministry concerned should apply its mind seriously to the socio-economic realities of the country's aspiring migrants in order to be able to train them properly and improve their lot both at home and abroad. An adequate number of uptodate and fully residential training centres for potential women workers needs to be set up throughout the country without delay, so that Bangladesh can compete successfully in the global market for 'cheap' but competent labour in various sectors in the international market.
With respect to domestic workers, there is scope for training disadvantaged women for the home market as well, and it should be done, both to abolish the near-slavery that 'servants' are subjected to generally, and to create a pool of efficient and fairly professional cleaners, cooks, nannies, to be hired on civilised terms of reference. In the late 1990's, a group, calling itself the Domestic Workers' Association, Bangladesh (DWAB) had formed a human chain around the Secretariat, demanding that domestic workers be recognised as labour and their wages and work hours be fixed as per labour law. They also called upon the government to take effective steps against the criminal abuse that some of them faced at the hands of employers. To eradicate such crimes, there is no alternative to empowering domestic workers and simultaneously sensitising the public about their human rights, not only in terms of international labour laws but also under religious codes of conduct.