Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) expresses concern on the sit-in programme of the Malaysia returned workers at the Zia International Airport.

According to different newspaper sources, 30 workers returned from Malaysia Sunday last. All 30 of them went to Malaysia through a recruiting agency named Tangail Overseas. The deported workers alleged that two years ago they went to Malaysia at a cost of two or two and half lakh taka each. They, as the story goes, had to sell all their belongings to meet the cost while they got employment only for 22 days against the long time contract that had been promised to them. One year after when the visa expired, in the name of getting visa for further period the agency took money once again without doing anything for them. Since then, the workers had to live in inhuman conditions in hiding. Many of them were caught by the police and imprisoned. The deported workers alleged that they did not get any cooperation from the Bangladesh High Commission in Malaysia.

We want to say that it is not unknown to the concerned authorities that the migrant workers who are the driving force of our economy fall prey to such kind of deceit repeatedly. The travel agencies deceive the poor workers in various ways. In this case too, like the previous times the relevant ministry, Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, which is in charge of monitoring the activities of the travel agencies, also could not play the expected role.

The workers go abroad selling all their belongings looking for a golden future but come back penniless, which creates a negative impact on the social and economic condition of the country. We think that ensuring the accountability of the travel agencies is an important factor here to overcome the situation and it’s the government’s responsibility to do that. The allegation of the collaboration of the travel agencies with the Bangladesh mission officials abroad to extract profit from the process is also nothing new.

In this regard, we call upon the government to take effective and immediate measures to remedy this plight of the workers. We demand that the government take steps to ensure that the deceived deported workers receive appropriate compensations along with the appropriate legal measures taken against the perpetrators.