Scores of jobseekers abroad during 2008-09 return home broke
Dreaming of a better future, Momin Bakkar flew to Singapore in June 2008, being completely unaware that the recession-hit economy there had nothing to offer him.
Broker Shariful Islam had promised him a job with a monthly pay of Tk 60,000 at Renown Marine Services, a shipping company, but on arrival in Singapore, Momin realised that he had landed in a big trouble from which there seemed no way out.
He took shelter at a dormitory where he saw some 21 other Bangladeshis like him– jobless. Hoping for a job, Momin stayed there for six months and after spending all his cash, he returned home in November 2008.
In Tarash upazila of Sirajganj, he used to work as a mechanic of shallow tube wells and earn yearly 200-300 mounds of paddy worth about Tk 2 to 3 lakh. When he was abroad, some other locals took over the job.
He had borrowed Tk 2 lakh to pay the broker and now he has no way to repay the loan, Momin told The Daily Star.
The money he had spent to get a job in Singapore could buy him around 300 decimals of land, he said.
“I lost all hopes of getting out of my sufferings. I am now struggling to feed my five-member family.”
Momin has recently filed a complaint with the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) with the assistance of Shikkha Shasthya Unnayan Karzakram (Shishuk).
He is one of the thousands of migrant workers who fell victim to the similar situation in 2008 and 2009, and returned home from Singapore, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Malaysia.
Sultana Adnan, then welfare coordinator of Singapore Bangladesh Samity, said some Singaporean employment agencies with the help of some Bangladeshis hired workers from here without assessing the marker demand during the recession.
Many illegal brokers also joined in the process to make money.
“In a few months, the workers were sent back. But by the time they have already given Tk 4 to 5 lakh to those unscrupulous people,” said Adnan, who along with others, had provided food and shelter to the jobless in Singapore.
When the issue came to the notice of Singapore Ministry of Manpower, it cancelled licences of many employment agencies there.
According to the ministry’s website, it revoked licences of 45 employment agencies for breaching regulations and convicted 72 brokers for not having any valid licence between 2006 and 2010.
Yasmin Sultana, then labour counselor of Bangladesh High Commission in Singapore, said the global economic meltdown affected Singapore’s economy very badly, but some employment agencies continued to hire workers for shipyards and construction companies only to make money.
Bangladesh High Commission then asked the BMET to be careful about sending workers to Singapore, she said. She arranged for the return of around 3,000 workers.
Sources in Singapore said some 10,000 jobless returned home from Singapre between 2008 and 2009.
The number of returnees from Dubai of the UAE and Malaysia in 2008 and 2009 due to recession is several times more.
Anwara Begum, senior research fellow of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, said, poor people were deceived into believing that they could make a good living abroad but the whole process even took away what they had left.
Families of many returnees resorted to hide to escape the lenders’ pressure, said Begum, who conducted a study on the impact of economic recession on migrant workers.
With no measures to rehabilitate them, their condition has further deteriorated, said the researcher suggesting that the government should take immediate steps to give them loans for entrepreneurship so they can recover from their ordeal.
Zafar Ahmed Khan, expatriates’ welfare secretary, said there is no data on the workers sent back from different countries due to recession.
Zafar, also chairman of newly established Expatriates’ Welfare Bank, said the bank would take measures to rehabilitate the workers.
