The government has decided to open emigration clearance for the people who want to work in the Maldives from today, expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain said. Talking to New Age at his office on Sunday, the minister said a government team recently visited the Maldives and they found that Bangladeshi workers were working there in good atmosphere.
‘No Bangladeshi worker was found unemployed in the Maldives,’ he said, quoting the statement of the team.
The government had temporarily stopped issuing emigration clearance since September for Maldives bound workers in order to observe the experience of those Bangladeshi workers who were already working in the island nation, said the minister.
According to Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training, in nine months since January, around 8,000 Bangladeshi workers have gone to the Maldives, the highest number in the current year. Since 1976, about 28,000 Bangladeshi workers have so far gone to the Maldives, data showed.
BMET director (immigration) Abdul Latif Khan who visited Maldives with the team told New Age that actual figure of Bangladeshi workers in Maldives would be much-more higher than the estimated number available in BMET.
The Maldives has showed huge demand of workers for their resorts and construction projects, he said.
BMET officials said despite huge demand, Bangladeshi workers were getting less salary than Indian or Sri Lankan workers in Maldives.
Sources in the manpower sector told New Age that hundreds of Bangladeshi workers returned home from the Maldives without getting any suitable job and after suffering difficulties in their workplaces.
Following the allegations, the BMET stopped issuance of immigration clearance for Maldives, they said.
Some recruiting agencies in nexus with a section of BMET officials were sending the workers to the Maldives in exchange for Tk 180,000 to 250,000 per person, it was alleged.
Bangladesh Probhashi Kallyan Society, a human rights organisation, has so far received about one hundred allegations of similar mistreatment from workers returning from the Maldives, said its executive director Harunur Rashid.
Harun said he had found that workers were being sent to Maldives through particular Recruiting Licence numbers (RL no-1116, 1155, 851 and 469).
Robiul Islam Robin, owner of Meghna Trade International, whose RL number is 1155, told New Age that his agency only helped the Maldives bound workers to complete their paper works at the BMET office.
-With New Age input
