Training for underdogs a sign of progress
Saturday, 30 October 2010
The Bangladesh government's move, to make training for low-skilled women workers who are aspiring to go abroad, mandatory, is very politically correct. Friends of the underdog would no doubt be pleased and would hope the government makes good its decision. There is a great deal that our job seekers need to know before they venture out into the wider world of alien lands, and it is not just the niceties of foreign culture. The women need to be street-wise and professional so that they can work with competence without compromising their human dignity in any way.
We understand the bureau for manpower employment and training has been given the responsibility of providing basic language lessons - Arabic and English - in seven of the bureau's centres dedicated to serving women migrants. Over the past 19 years, at least a hundred and fifty thousand of our female job seekers have flown to foreign jobs. But as most of them happened to have no marketable skills or were considered semi-skilled, they ended up as mere domestics. The scope for trained nurses abroad is considerable, but unfortunately, less than one per cent of Bangladesh's migrant workers get into nursing jobs. Just 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. So the target group hardly get much benefit even from this apology of a training.
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 up to date 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 labourers 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 crimes of both commission and omission against poor folk who are obliged to work round the clock only for a pittance, with virtually no leisure and terms of reference, there must be a nationwide movement to empower domestic workers sensibly as professionals, and at the same time sensitise the public about their human rights, not only in terms of international labour laws but also under Islamic codes of conduct as laid down in the Quran and the Hadith.
We understand the bureau for manpower employment and training has been given the responsibility of providing basic language lessons - Arabic and English - in seven of the bureau's centres dedicated to serving women migrants. Over the past 19 years, at least a hundred and fifty thousand of our female job seekers have flown to foreign jobs. But as most of them happened to have no marketable skills or were considered semi-skilled, they ended up as mere domestics. The scope for trained nurses abroad is considerable, but unfortunately, less than one per cent of Bangladesh's migrant workers get into nursing jobs. Just 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. So the target group hardly get much benefit even from this apology of a training.
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 up to date 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 labourers 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 crimes of both commission and omission against poor folk who are obliged to work round the clock only for a pittance, with virtually no leisure and terms of reference, there must be a nationwide movement to empower domestic workers sensibly as professionals, and at the same time sensitise the public about their human rights, not only in terms of international labour laws but also under Islamic codes of conduct as laid down in the Quran and the Hadith.