Death of migrant workers
THE alarming rise in the incidence of death of our migrant workers has become a matter of public concern in recent days. According to official statistics, at least 8,107 expatriate Bangladeshi workers died in a number of countries, particularly in the Middle East countries, between January 2004 and May 9, 2009.
The government recorded a total of 2,237 death cases of migrant workers in 2008, which had been 1,673 in 2007, 1,402 in 2006, 1,248 in 2005 and 788 in 2004. At least 904 migrant workers, including 32 women, died in the first four months of 2009 alone.
The International Migrants Alliance Research Foundation (IMARF), a rights group working for migrant workers, termed this trend of deaths alarming, as many deceased workers -- ged between 25 and 40 years -- had been medically fit at the time of leaving home but died in a few months of getting to their workplaces abroad.
According to a Daily Star report, around 44% of the Bangladeshi migrant workers who returned home in coffins between January 1 and May 9 this year had died of cardiac arrest in the Middle East and Southeast Asian countries.
A total of 904 bodies of migrant workers returned home this year from different countries -- 391 died of cardiac failure, 268 in workplace accidents, 62 in road accidents and 115 of sickness. The remaining died due to some other reasons. A parliamentary body believes that the death of over 12,000 Bangladeshi expatriate workers in the last eight years was nothing abnormal.
One may also argue that the death of 8,107 workers in five years, among six million workers scattered in different countries, is not a significant cause for alarm. But it is quite alarming. IMARF has rightly pointed to the violation of human and labour rights by the employers and lack of healthcare as major causes of their deaths.
The occupational hazards and systematic maltreatment of our migrant workers also occasionally appeared in the local media, bringing to light their agonies. But the most ironical part is that the labour counselors at the Bangladesh missions abroad, who are supposed to redress the grievances of their country's workers, hardly came forward for helping the victims.
The Bangladeshi workers provide most essential menial labour like cleaning roads, hospitals and other important establishments in the Middle East countries. But the companies that place them in these hazardous jobs never fulfill their contractual obligations about salary and living conditions.
These migrant workers have to pay a high price to go abroad for jobs, but quite often their incomes are not up to their expectations. So, they can neither recover the money to repay the loans nor can they help their families back home, which makes their lives abroad miserable.
Bangladeshi workers are now spread over 100 countries across the world, prominently in Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Maldives, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Libya Lebanon, Germany, Australia, Iran, Japan, Italy and Spain. They are mostly engaged in various hazardous occupations and their rights are frequently denied. More than five lakh Bangladeshi workers are now working in UAE and many of them are victims of exploitation and systematic maltreatment by their employers.
The fact that some 8,107 migrant workers have died abroad in the past five years, may not be a matter of concern for the parliamentary body on the ministry of expatriate welfare, but it is crucial that the receive an answer as to why such a huge number of our migrant workers are dying even though they went abroad in perfectly good health.
It is quite unfortunate that the government is yet to act on the alarming rise of death of our migrant workers. Around 44% of death, which has been attributed to cardiac failure, cannot be accepted as normal cause of death for the young people who had left the country a few months back in quite good health. Death from workplace accidents, which account for more than 25%, is also equally worrying.
The government should immediately send high-powered teams to the Middle East and Southeast Asian countries for investigating the huge abnormal death of our migrant workers and also to negotiate, with the governments of the host countries, in improving the working and living conditions of our migrant workers.
A greater responsibility, thus, develops on this government for protecting our migrant workers from the curse of systematic neglect, who have been playing a pivotal role in gearing up country's economy. The country received remittances worth about eight billion dollars from the expatriate workers in 2007-08 fiscal, the highest foreign currency earning in terms of 100% retention value.
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