We are at a loss to understand how the Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry has, for the third year in a row, failed to send the expected number of workers to Malaysia. Only 7,000 workers have been sent to the Southeast Asian country since 2013, even though Bangladesh had the scope of sending at least 50,000 workers each year. We were optimistic when the four-year embargo on recruitment of Bangladesh workers was withdrawn by Malaysia in 2012, and the process to hire workers under the government-to-government (G2G) mechanism was initiated in 2013. However, from the very beginning, Bangladesh has been unable to reap the benefits of the G2G because of the government's lack of expertise in managing such a huge number of migrant workers to a foreign market.

The Minister has argued that the government could not generate demand for workers in Malaysia in the same way private recruiters did, but could only process them. We feel that the Ministry should have taken urgent steps to address its inefficiencies, even involving the private sector, to enable our workers to access jobs in the Malaysian market. At a time when tens of thousands of Bangladeshis are desperately seeking jobs abroad – many even undertaking perilous journeys across the seas risking their lives – the government cannot afford to not take proper advantage of the bilateral recruitment process. The Malaysian government has pledged to hire five lakh workers from all sectors of Bangladesh within a year, but our ministry has to step up and deliver its end of the bargain. 

The ministry's decision to allow private recruiting agencies to send the migrants to Malaysia to speed up the recruitment process is a constructive move, but it must ensure that the agencies do not engage in irregular and dishonest activities that jeopardise the workers' future.