Forgery in manpower export

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A few years back I was coming back from Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. At the airport I was told by an immigration official that nearly 100 Bangladeshis are confined there for days together. After the check-in and immigration formalities, I managed to go the place where the Bangladeshis were kept confined. I found 120 Bangladeshis there as they could not produce genuine documents to work in Malaysia. They said they were forged by the recruiting agency.

Late last month, several newspapers reported that 32 Bangladeshi workers were found stranded in Kuala Lumpur. The story is the same. These people paid more than the required money, but the agency did not give them the genuine papers. It is sure that there have been a number of recruiting agencies which are not dealing properly with matters relating to sending workers abroad. May be, some of the overseas firms are also responsible for the shoddy deals with local recruitment agencies. Exactly that was the case regarding the 32 workers who have been stranded at Kuala Lumpur airport for a week. The firm for which they are supposed to work refused to receive them. The employment-offering firm made it clear that the Bangladeshi recruiting agency, Shikha Trade International, failed to pay it more than 70,000 Ringgit as part of their financial deal. The recruitment agency in Dhaka and the employing firm in Kuala Lumpur are both engaged in bad deal concerning these workers.

The Bangladeshi workers have, of late, fallen regular victims to the caprices of employment organisations in Kuala Lumpur. We don't want to hear mere warnings from the government, but we want to see action against the unscrupulous recruiting agencies.

Ahmed Reza

Dhanmandi R/A

Dhaka