Can we break the cycle of migrant exploitation?
The announcement of official pardon for the 57 Bangladeshi migrants, who were handed out harsh prison sentences in the UAE for organising peaceful protests in solidarity with students back home, has brought about a general sense of relief. This is a definitive diplomatic win for the chief adviser, and has raised hopes of closer ties with an important trade partner at a crucial moment—in FY2023-24, $3.65 billion was sent from the UAE to Bangladesh as remittance, making it the highest remittance-earning market for our workers.
However, the severity and lack of due process in terms of the sentencing, as well as a glaring lack of support from relevant ministries and officials in Bangladesh prior to the chief adviser's intervention, point towards a worrying status quo for migrants. It is clear that, working in precarious conditions under repressive regimes with little knowledge of their rights (and limits to it), our workers are on paper celebrated for their role in propping up the economy, but in reality, they are isolated, ignored, and left to fend for themselves.
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Nothing makes this stark reality more obvious than the huge number of migrant workers that continue to return home in body bags and coffins. Last year, a record 4,552 Bangladeshi workers died abroad, with a majority of these deaths occurring in Gulf states. Almost all of them were chalked up to "natural causes," despite rights groups arguing that unsafe working conditions, including lack of protections against extreme heat, are a major driver behind these untimely deaths.
Over the last 10 years, more than 34,000 migrant workers have died abroad. Yet, the previous government made not even one serious attempt to provide justice to the family members of the deceased. To this day, we have no comprehensive data on the proportion of female migrant workers who have faced sexual violence and torture, although different sources estimate this to be between 17 percent and 35 percent. In 2021, Abiron Begum became the only Bangladeshi woman to receive justice when a Saudi court convicted a family of three for her murder, but there are many more Abirons who have been forgotten. As long as the labour flows out and remittances flow in, there has been a silent consensus on turning a blind eye to rights abuses so far.
One immediate push that is needed is health coverage for our workers. For too long they have been treated as dispensable, receiving little to no healthcare and being unceremoniously kicked out of their workplaces after falling ill. Oman has already set an example by introducing a social insurance system for both nationals and migrant workers that covers sickness, and it is high time for us to raise our voices so that others follow suit.
Far from supporting and protecting our migrants, many officials of the previous establishment seem to have played an active role in exploiting workers through labour syndicates instead. We have seen this most recently in the Malaysia recruitment chaos, where thousands of workers spent their life savings, yet never found employment. Currently, Bangladesh has the highest labour recruitment costs in South Asia, a large proportion of which is spent on bribes and illegal fees. These fraudulent practices are not only a crushing burden on ordinary workers, but it harms the economy by creating a trust deficit with host countries and limiting access to labour markets. In 2023, an average of 8,200 Bangladeshis were travelling to the UAE every month, whereas this year, the figure has dropped to 6,500 per month, reportedly due to employers' reluctance to take on workers who might ultimately fail to meet legal requirements.
The interim government is now faced with the mammoth task of rescuing migrant workers from exploitation, both at home and abroad, while ensuring that their efforts do not have the adverse impact of reducing labour outflows instead. For this, the most urgent course of action is to bring back trust into the recruitment process by breaking up the labour syndicates. The chokehold of the powerful few can finally be loosened, with more players allowed into the market. It is also essential to make legal recourse available to migrants, both for righting historical wrongs and to ensure their protection in future interactions with recruiting agencies.
Unfortunately, corruption and mismanagement exist at every level, whether it's bribes for police clearance certificates, exaggerated fees for medical tests, or overpriced tickets from travel agencies. Workers rarely have clear information on these processes, and are at the mercy of sub-agents and brokers who work as go-betweens for them and agencies. Ensuring easy access to information is a necessity to protect workers, as is a particular authority, preferably separated from recruitment, where complaints can be lodged regarding such unscrupulous practices.
The recent events in the UAE have made it clear that workers' ability to organise and collectively bargain for their rights in destination countries are severely restricted. Given how vulnerable this makes them, it is shocking that over the past few decades, so little effort has been put into creating a proper bureaucratic infrastructure and setting up support systems that migrant workers can directly access. In contrast, if we are to look at the Philippines model for inspiration, we will find that their foreign consulates hold a resource centre for migrants, as well as a specific migrant workers office and social welfare attachés in host countries. We can definitely take a leaf out of their book in terms of building a migration management system, streamlining migration-related bureaucracy and investing in human capital, alongside updating labour laws to protect migrants.
We have also witnessed recently that a little bit of diplomacy can go a long way. It is time for us to realise that there is safety in numbers, and to collaborate with India, Pakistan and other South Asian countries with big migrant populations to put pressure on destination countries. One immediate push that is needed is health coverage for our workers. For too long they have been treated as dispensable, receiving little to no healthcare and being unceremoniously kicked out of their workplaces after falling ill. Oman has already set an example by introducing a social insurance system for both nationals and migrant workers that covers sickness, and it is high time for us to raise our voices so that others follow suit.
If you're wondering whether such efforts will ultimately hamper migration, it must be clear by now that there is an obvious power imbalance between migrant importing and exporting nations that devalues our workers, especially if they are "unskilled." But if the July uprising has taught us anything, it is that power cannot be endlessly abused. Alongside dealing with the exploitation of workers within our own economy, we must also tackle global exploitative practices head-on, whether it is in the migrant labour sector or in the RMG industry. If the Qatar World Cup is an example to go by, Saudi Arabia will also rely heavily on migrant workers for construction if it is to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup. It is high time for host countries to come to the realisation that they need us as much as we need them too.
Shuprova Tasneem is a writer and commentator with an interest in gender justice and global politics. Her X handle is @shuprovatasneem.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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